S

LUCY'S BIRTHDAY

EVENTEEN rose-buds in a ring,
Thick with sister flowers beset,
In a fragrant coronet,

Lucy's servants this day bring.
Be it the birthday wreath she wears
Fresh and fair, and symbolling
The young number of her years,
The sweet blushes of her spring.

Types of youth and love and hope!
Friendly hearts your mistress greet,
Be you ever fair and sweet,
And grow lovelier as you ope!
Gentle nursling, fenced about
With fond care, and guarded so,

Scarce you've heard of storms without,
Frosts that bite, or winds that blow!

Kindly has your life begun,
And we pray that heaven may send
To our floweret a warm sun,
A calm summer, a sweet end.
And where'er shall be her home,
May she decorate the place;
Still expanding into bloom,
And developing in grace.

I

THE CANE-BOTTOM'D CHAIR

N tattered old slippers that toast at the bars,

And a ragged old jacket perfumed with cigars,

Away from the world and its toils and its cares, I've a snug little kingdom up four pair of stairs.

To mount to this realm is a toil, to be sure,
But the fire there is bright and the air rather pure;
And the view I behold on a sunshiny day

Is grand through the chimney-pots over the way.

This snug little chamber is cramm'd in all nooks
With worthless old knicknacks and silly old books,
And foolish old odds and foolish old ends,

Crack'd bargains from brokers, cheap keepsakes from friends.

Old armour, prints, pictures, pipes, china, (all crack'd,) Old rickety tables, and chairs broken-backed;

A twopenny treasury, wondrous to see;

What matter? 't is pleasant to you, friend, and me.

No better divan need the Sultan require,
Than the creaking old sofa that basks by the fire;
And 't is wonderful, surely, what music you get
From the rickety, ramshackle, wheezy spinet.

That praying-rug came from a Turcoman's camp;
By Tiber once twinkled that brazen old lamp;
A Mameluke fierce yonder dagger has drawn:
'Tis a murderous knife to toast muffins upon.

Long, long through the hours, and the night, and the chimes,

Here we talk of old books, and old friends, and old

times;

As we sit in a fog made of rich Latakie

This chamber is pleasant to you, friend, and me.

But of all the cheap treasures that garnish my nest,
There's one that I love and I cherish the best:
For the finest of couches that's padded with hair
I never would change thee, my cane-bottom'd chair.

'Tis a bandy-legg'd, high-shoulder'd, worm-eaten seat,
With a creaking old back, and twisted old feet;
But since the fair morning when Fanny sat there,
I bless thee and love thee, old cane-bottom'd chair.

If chairs have but feeling, in holding such charms, A thrill must have pass'd through your wither'd old arms!

I look'd, and I long'd, and I wish'd in despair;

I wish'd myself turn'd to a cane-bottom'd chair.

It was but a moment she sat in this place,

She'd a scarf on her neck, and a smile on her face!

A smile on her face, and a rose in her hair,

And she sat there, and bloom'd in my cane-bottom'd chair.

And so I have valued my chair ever since,

Like the shrine of a saint, or the throne of a prince;

Saint Fanny, my patroness sweet I declare,

The queen of my heart and my cane-bottom'd chair.

When the candles burn low, and the company's gone,
In the silence of night as I sit here alone-
I sit here alone, but we yet are a pair -
My Fanny I see in my cane-bottom'd chair.

She comes from the past and revisits my room;
She looks as she then did, all beauty and bloom;
So smiling and tender, so fresh and so fair,
And yonder she sits in my cane-bottomed chair.

PISCATOR AND PISCATRIX

LINES WRITTEN TO AN ALBUM PRINT

S on this pictured page I look,

A

This pretty tale of line and hook
As though it were a novel-book
Amuses and engages:

I know them both, the boy and girl;
She is the daughter of the Earl,
The lad (that has his hair in curl)

My lord the County's page is.

A pleasant place for such a pair!
The fields lie basking in the glare;
No breath of wind the heavy air
Of lazy summer quickens.
Hard by you see the castle tall;
The village nestles round the wall,
As round about the hen its small
Young progeny of chickens.

It is too hot to pace the keep;
To climb the turret is too steep;
My lord the earl is dozing deep,
His noonday dinner over:

The postern-warder is asleep

(Perhaps they've bribed him not to peep): And so from out the gate they creep,

And cross the fields of clover.