Old books to read!

Ay, bring those nodes of wit,
The brazen-clasped, the vellum writ,
Time-honored tomes!

The same my sire scanned before,
The same my grandsire thumbed o'er,
The same his sire from college bore,
The well-earned meed

Of Oxford's domes:

Old Homer blind,

Old Horace, rake Anacreon, by

Old Tully, Plautus, Terence lie;
Mort Arthur's olden minstrelsie,

Quaint Burton, quainter Spenser, ay!
And Gervase Markham's venerie-

Nor leave behind

The Holye Book by which we live and die.

Old friends to talk!

Ay, bring those chosen few,

The wise, the courtly, and the true,
So rarely found;

Him for my wine, him for my stud,
Him for my easel, distich, bud
In mountain walk!

Bring Walter good:

With soulful Fred; and learned Will, And thee, my alter ego (dearer still

For every mood).

These add a bouquet to my wine!

These add a sparkle to my pine!

If these I tine,

Can books, or fire, or wine be good?

ROBERT HINCKLEY MESSINGER.

Wreathe the Bowl.

WREATHE the bowl

With flowers of soul,
The brightest wit can find us;
We'll take a flight
Towards heaven to-night,
And leave dull earth behind us!
Should Love amid

The wreaths be hid
That Joy, the enchanter, brings us,

Say, why did Time
His glass sublime

Fill up with sands unsightly,

When wine he knew

Runs brisker through,

And sparkles far more brightly? Oh, lend it us,

And, smiling thus,

The glass in two we'd sever,
Make pleasure glide

In double tide,

And fill both ends for ever!

Then wreathe the bowl With flowers of soul, The brightest wit can find us; We'll take a flight Towards heaven to-night, And leave dull earth behind us!

THOMAS MOORE.

173

Sparkling and Bright.

SPARKLING and bright in liquid light,

Does the wine our goblets gleam in;
With hue as red as the rosy bed

Which a bee would choose to dream in.
Then fill to-night, with hearts as light,

To loves as gay and fleeting

As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim, And break on the lips while meeting.

Oh! if Mirth might arrest the flight

Of Time through Life's dominions,

We here a while would now beguile
The graybeard of his pinions,

To drink to-night, with hearts as light,
To loves as gay and fleeting

As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim,
And break on the lips while meeting.

But since Delight can't tempt the wight,
Nor fond Regret delay him,

Nor Love himself can hold the elf,

Nor sober Friendship stay him,

We'll drink to-night, with hearts as light,
To loves as gay and fleeting

As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim,
And break or the lips while meeting.

CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN.

Champagne Rosé.

LILY on liquid roses floating-

So floats yon foam o'er pink champagne. Fain would I join such pleasant boating, And prove that ruby main,

And float away on wine!

Those seas are dangerous, graybeards swear,
Whose sea-beach is the goblet's brim;
And true it is they drown old Care-
But what care we for him,

So we but float on wine!

And true it is they cross in pain,

Who sober cross the Stygian ferry; But only make our Styx champagne, And we shall cross right merry, Floating away in wine!