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Lean, lichen-spotted, o'er the crumbled bones

Still slumbering where they lay

While the sad Pilgrim watched to scare the wolf away

Spread o'er my couch thy visionary wing!

Still let me dream and sing,

Dream of that winding shore

Where scarlet cardinals bloom,-for me no more,—
The stream with heaven beneath its liquid floor,
And clustering nenuphars

Sprinkling its mirrored blue like golden-chaliced stars!

Come while their balms the linden-blossoms shed!—
Come while the rose is red,—

While blue-eyed Summer smiles

On the green ripples round yon sunken piles
Washed by the moon-wave warm from Indian isles,

And on the sultry air

The chestnuts spread their palms like holy men in prayer

Oh, for thy burning lips to fire my brain

With thrills of wild sweet pain!—

On life's autumnal blast,

Like shrivelled leaves, youth's passion-flowers are cast,

Once loving thee, we love thee to the last!

Behold thy new-decked shrine,

And near once more the voice that breathed "Forever thing

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[THE Company looked a little flustered one morn ing when I came in,-so much so, that I inquired of my neighbor, the divinity-student, what had been going on, It appears that the young fellow whom they call John had taken advantage of my being a little late (I having been rather longer than usual dressing that morning) to circulate several questions involving a quibble or play upon words,-in short, containing that indignity to the human understanding, condemned in the passages from the distinguished moralist of the last century and the illustrious historian of the present, which I cited on a former occasion, and known as a pun. After break

fast, one of the boarders handed me a small roll of paper containing some of the questions and their answers. I subjoin two or three of them, to show what a tendency there is to frivolity and meaningless talk in young persons of a certain sort, when not restrained by the presence of more reflective natures. -It was asked, "Why tertian and quartan fevers were like certain short-lived insects." Some interesting physiological relation would be naturally suggested. The inquirer blushes to find that the answer is in the paltry equivocation, that they skip a day or two." Why an Englishman must go to the Conti.

nent to weaken his grog or punch." The answer proves to have no relation whatever to the temperance-movement, as no better reason is given than that island- (or, as it is absurdly written, ile and) water won't mix. But when I came to the next question and its answer, I felt that patience ceased to be a virtue. "Why an onion is like a piano" is a query that a person of sensibility would be slow to propose; but that in an educated community an individual could be found to answer it in these words,"Because it smell odious," quasi, it's melodious,-is not credible, but too true. I can show you the paper.

Dear reader, I beg your pardon for repeating such things. I know most conversations reported in books are altogether above such trivial details, but folly will come up at every table as surely as purslain and chickweed and sorrel will come up in gardens. This young fellow ought to have talked philosophy, I know perfectly well; but he didn't, he made jokes.]

I am willing, I said,—to exercise your ingenuity in a rational and contemplative manner.-No, I do not proscribe certain forms of philosophical speculation which involve an approach to the absurd or the ludicrous, such as you may find, for example, in the folio of the Reverend Father Thomas Sanchez, in his famous Disputations, "De Sancto Matrimonio." I will therefore turn this levity of yours to profit by eading you a rhymed problem, wrought out by my "riend the Professor.

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