So grieve not, Ladies, if at night

You wake to feel the cold December;
Rather recall the early light,

And in your loved one's arms, remember.
Anna Hempstead Branch [18

THE LOVER'S CHOICE

A MAID unto her lover sternly said:

"Forego the Indian weed before we wed;

"For smoke take flame; I'll be that flame's bright fanner; To have your Anna, give up your Havana."

The wretch, when thus she brought him to the scratch,
Lit the cigar, and threw away the match.

Unknown

THE BETROTHED

"You must choose between me and your cigar"

OPEN the old cigar-box, get me a Cuba stout,

For things are running crossways, and Maggie and I are out.

We quarreled about Havanas-we fought o'er a good cheroot

And I know she is exacting, and she says I am a brute.

Open the old cigar-box-let me consider a space,

In the soft blue veil of the vapor, musing on Maggie's face.

Maggie is pretty to look at-Maggie's a loving lass,

But the prettiest cheeks must wrinkle, the truest of loves must pass.

There's peace in a Laranaga, there's calm in a Henry Clay, But the best cigar in an hour is finished and thrown away—

Thrown away for another as perfect and ripe and brown— But I never could throw away Maggie for fear o' the talk o' the town!

The Betrothed

Maggie, my wife at fifty-gray and dour and old-
With never another Maggie to purchase for love or gold.

841

And the light of Days that have Been, the dark of the Days that Are,

And Love's torch stinking and stale, like the butt of a dead cigar

The butt of a dead cigar you are bound to keep in your pocket

With never a new one to light, though it's charred and black to the socket.

Open the old cigar-box-let me consider awhile;
Here is a mild Manilla-there is a wifely smile.

Which is the better portion-bondage bought with a ring, Or a harem of dusky beauties, fifty tied in a string?

Counselors cunning and silent-comforters true and tried, And never a one of the fifty to sneer at a rival bride.

Thought in the early morning, solace in time of woes, Peace in the hush of the twilight, balm ere my eyelids close.

This will the fifty give me, asking naught in return,
With only a Suttee's passion—to do their duty and burn.

This will the fifty give me. When they are spent and dead, Five times other fifties shall be my servants instead.

The furrows of far-off Java, the isles of the Spanish Main, When they hear that my harem is empty, will send me my brides again.

I will take no heed to their raiment, nor food for their mouths withal,

So long as the gulls are nesting, so long as the showers fall.

I will scent 'em with best vanilla, with tea will I temper their

hides,

And the Moor and the Mormon shall envy who read of the tale of my brides.

For Maggie has written a letter to give me my choice between The wee little whimpering Love and the great god Nick o' Teen.

And I have been servant of Love for barely a twelvemonth

clear,

But I have been Priest of Partagas a matter of seven year;

And the gloom of my bachelor days is flecked with the cheery light

Of stumps that I burned to Friendship, and Pleasure, and Work, and Fight.

And I turn my eyes to the future that Maggie and I must

prove,

But the only light on the marshes is the Will-o'-the-Wisp of Love.

Will it see me safe through my journey, or leave me bogged in the mire?

Since a puff of tobacco can cloud it, shall I follow the fitful fire?

Open the old cigar-box-let me consider anew

Old friends, and who is Maggie, that I should abandon you?

A million surplus Maggies are willing to bear the yoke;
And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a Smoke.

Light me another Cuba-I hold to my first-sworn vows,
If Maggie will have no rival, I'll have no Maggie for spouse!
Rudyard Kipling [1865-