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One night, as a slight innuendo,

When Nature was mantled in snow,
He wrote in the frost on the window,
A sweet word in Latin-“amo.”
O, it needed no words for expression,
For that I had long understood;
But there was his written confession-
Present tense and indicative mood.

But O, how man's passion will vary!
For scarcely a year had passed by,
When he changed the "amo" to "amare,"
But instead of an "e" was a "y."

Yes, a Mary had certainly taken

The heart once so fondly my own,

And I, the rejected, forsaken,

Was left to reflection alone.

Since then I've a horror of Latin,

And students uncommonly smart;

True love, one should always put that in,
To balance the head by the heart.

To be a fine scholar and linguist,

Is much to one's credit, I know,

But "I love" should be said in plain English, And not with a Latin "amo.”

LXVI.

THE SCULPTOR BOY.

Chisel in hand stood a sculptor boy,
With his marble block before him
And his face lit up with a smile of joy
As an angel dream passed o'er him.
He carved that dream on the yielding stone
With many a sharp incision;

In Heaven's own light the sculptor shone,

He had caught that angel vision.

Sculptors of life are we, as we stand

With our lives uncarved before us,

Waiting the hour, when, at God's command,
Our life dream passes o'er us.

Let us carve it, then, on the yielding stone

With many a sharp incision;

Its heavenly beauty shall be our own,—
Our lives, that angel vision.

LXVII.

BLESSED IS THE MAN WHOM THOU CHASTENEST."

SIR RICHARD GRANT.

O, Savior, whose mercy, severe in its kindness,
Has chastened my wanderings and guided my way,
Adored be the power that illumined my blindness,
And weaned me from phantoms that smiled to betray.

Enchanted with all that was dazzling and fair,
I followed the rainbow I caught at the toy;
And still in displeasure Thy goodness was there,
Disappointing the hope, and defeating the joy.

The blossom blushed bright, but a worm was below;

The moonlight shone fair, there was blight in the beam; Sweet whispered the breeze, but it whispered of woe, And bitterness flowed in the soft flowing stream.

So cured of my folly, yet cured but in part,

I turned to the refuge Thy pity displayed;

And still did this eager and credulous heart

Weave visions of promise that bloomed but to fade.

I thought that the course of the pilgrim to Heaven
Would be bright as the summer, and glad as the morn;
Thou show 'dst me the path, it was dark and uneven,
All rugged with rock and tangled with thorn.

I dreamed of celestial reward and renown,

I grasped at the triumph that blesses the brave,

I asked for the palm-branch, the robe and the crown,-
I asked, and Thou show 'dst me a cross and a grave

Subdued and instructed, at length, to Thy will,

My hopes and my longings I fain would resign; O, give me the heart that can wait and be still, Nor know of a wish or a pleasure but Thine.

There are mansions exempted from sin and from woe, But they stand in a region by mortals untrod; There are rivers of joy, but they flow not below; There is rest, but it dwells in the presence of God.

LXVIII.

THE FRENCHMAN AND THE FLEA POWder.

ORIGINAL VERSION-BY PROF. RAYMOND.

A Frenchman once-so runs a certain ditty-
Had crossed the Straits to famous London city,
To get a living by the arts of France,

And teach his neighbor, rough John Bull, to dance.

But lacking pupils, vain was all his skill;
His fortunes sank from low to lower still,
Until at last, pathetic to relate,
Poor Monsieur landed at starvation's gate.
Standing, one day, at a cook-shop door,
And gazing in with aggravation sore,

He mused within himself what he should do
To fill his empty maw, and pocket too.
By nature shrewd, he soon contrived a plan,
And thus to execute it straight began:

A piece of common brick he quickly found,
And with a harder stone to powder ground,
Then wrapped the dust in many a dainty piece
Of paper, labled "Poison for de Fleas,"
And sallied forth, his roguish trick to try,

To show his treasures, and see who'd buy.

From street to street he cried, with lusty yell,
"Here's grand and sovereign flea poudare to sell."

And fickle fortune seemed to smile at last,
For soon a woman hailed him as he passed,
Struck a quick bargain with him for the lot,
And made him five crowns richer on the spot.
Our wight, encouraged by this ready sale,
Went into business on a larger scale,
And soon throughout all London scattered he
The "only genuine poudare for de flea."
Engaged one morning in his new vocation
Of mingled boasting and dissimulation,
He thought he heard himself in anger called;
And sure enough the self-same woman brawled,
In not a very mild or tender mood,

From the same window where before she stood.

Hey, there!" said she, "you Monsher Powder-man:
Escape my clutches now, sir, if you can!

I'll let you dirty, thieving Frenchmen know,

That decent people won't be cheated so.

How dare you tell me that your worthless stuff
Would make my bedsteads clean and clear enough
Of bugs? I've rubbed those bedsteads o'er and o'er,
And now the plagues are thicker than before!"
Then spoke Monsieur, and heaved a saintly sigh
With humble attitude and tearful eye.

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“Ah, madam! s'il vous plait, attendez-vous
I vill dis leetle ting explain to you.
My poudare gran'! magnifique! why abuse him?
Aha! I show you, Madam, how to use him.
You must not spread him in large quantité
Upon de bedstead-no! dat's not de vay.
First, you must wait until you catch de flea;
Den, tickle he on de petite rib, you see;
And when he laugh-aha! he ope his throat;
Den poke de poudare down! —BEGAR! HE CHOKE!!

LXIX.

DADDY AND SONNY.

Daddy and I is jolly fellows; he, he! When I laugh, daddy he laughs; and when daddy laughs I laugh-he, he, he! Daddy and

J

Daddy and One's name Towse dog is

me is in company- Daddy and Sonny-he, he, he! me has got a couple of very slick dogs, home, he, he. is Towse, and 'tother's name is Bowse-he, he, he! very slick dog; but that Bowse dog is a very lazy dog; he, he, he! I've got a brother Pete, home, too. Pete's a very lazy fellow-just as lazy as the Bowse dog, he, he, he! They ain't neither of them worth their salt, for they don't do nothing in the house, nor out on the house. But that Towse dog is real slick dog, I tell ye; he, he, he, he! Daddy and me has got a couple of very slick tater-patch, too, he, he. That low tater-patch is'nt worth much. We didn't spect to get more than two taters to the hill, out on that lower patch. But that upper tater-patch and that Towse dog is real slick, I tell ye! he, he, he! I've got a sweetheart, too; her name's Sukey Sinder. She and me keeps company together. I tell you what, she's real slick, he, he, he. And Daddy and me's got forty cows: Daddy's got thirty-nine, and I've got one. Mine's an ox. I'll run down and see him; he, he, he!

LXX.

OPPOSITE EXAMPLES.

H. MANN.

I ask the young man who is just forming his habits of life, or just beginning to indulge those habitual trains of thought out of which habits grow, to look around him, and mark the examples whose fortunes he would covet, or whose fate he would abhor. Even as we walk the streets, we meet with examples of each extreme. Here, behold the patriarch, whose stock of vigor three-score years and ten seems scarcely to have impaired. His erect form, his firm step, his elastic limbs, and undimmed senses, are so many certificates of good conduct; or, rather, so many jewels and orders of nobility with which nature has honored him for his fidelity to her laws. His fair complextion shows that his blood has never been corrupted; his pure health that he never yielded his digestive apparatus to abuse; his exact language and keen apprehension, that his brain has never been drugged or stupefied by the poisons of distiller or tobacconist.

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