Why, yes;

for memory would recall

My fond paternal joys;

i could not bear to leave them all;

I'll take

- my — girl — and - boys!

The smiling angel dropped his pen, "Why this will never do;

The man would be a boy again,

And be a father too!"

And so I laughed, — my laughter woke

The household with its noise, —

And wrote my dream, when morning broke,

To please the gray-haired boys.

MARE RUBRUM.

FLASH out a stream of blood-red wine! -
For I would drink to other days;
And brighter shall their memory shine,
Seen flaming through its crimson blaze.
The roses die, the summers fade;
But every ghost of boyhood's dream

By Nature's magic power is laid

To sleep beneath this blood-red stream.

It filled the purple grapes that lay
And drank the splendors of the sun
Where the long summer's cloudless day
Is mirrored in the broad Garonne ;
It pictures still the bacchant shapes
That saw their hoarded sunlight shed,
The maidens dancing on the grapes,

Their milk-white ankles splashed with red.

Beneath these waves of crimson lie,

In rosy fetters prisoned fast,

Those flitting shapes that never die,

The swift-winged visions of the past. Kiss but the crystal's mystic rim,

Each shadow rends its flowery chain, Springs in a bubble from its brim

And walks the chambers of the brain.

Poor Beauty! time and fortune's wrong
No form nor feature may withstand, -
Thy wrecks are scattered all along,

Like emptied sea-shells on the sand;
Yet, sprinkled with this blushing rain,
The dust restores each blooming girl,

As if the sea-shells moved again

Their glistening lips of pink and pearl.

Here lies the home of schoolboy life,

With creaking stair and wind-swept hall, And, scarred by many a truant knife,

Our old initials on the wall;

Here rest their keen vibrations mute

The shout of voices known so well,

The ringing laugh, the wailing flute,

The chiding of the sharp-tongued bell. 9

M

Here, clad in burning robes, are laid
Life's blossomed joys, untimely shed;
And here those cherished forms have strayed
We miss awhile, and call them dead.
What wizard fills the maddening glass?
What soil the enchanted clusters grew,
That buried passions wake and pass
In beaded drops of fiery dew?

Nay, take the cup of blood-red wine,

Our hearts can boast a warmer glow, Filled from a vintage more divine,

Calmed, but not chilled by winter's snow!

To-night the palest wave we sip

Rich as the priceless draught shall be

That wet the bride of Cana's lip,

The wedding wine of Galilee!

WHAT WE ALL THINK.

THAT age was older once than now,
In spite of locks untimely shed,

Or silvered on the youthful brow;

That babes make love and children wed.

That sunshine had a heavenly glow,

Which faded with those "good old days " When winters came with deeper snow,

And autumns with a softer haze.

The "best of women " each has known.

Were schoolboys ever half so wild?

How young the grandpapas have grown!