Go, Cousin Jane, and speak to her,

Find out and let me know;

Tell her the gals should court the men,
For isn't this leap-year?

That's why I'm kind of bashful like,

A waiting for her here;

And should she hear I'm scared of her,
You'll swear it can't be true.
Oh, darn it all!—afeared of a gal,
And me just six feet two!

ANON.

SPARKLING AND BRIGHT.

SPARKLING and bright in liquid light
Does the wine our goblets gleam in,
With hue as red as the rosy bed

Which a bee would choose to dream in.
Then fill to-night, with hearts as light,
To loves as gay and fleeting

As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim,
And break on the lips while meeting.

O! if Mirth might arrest the flight

Of Time through Life's dominions,
We here a while would now beguile
The graybeard of his pinions,

To drink to-night, with hearts as light,
To loves as gay and fleeting

As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim,
And break on the lips while meeting.

But since delight can't tempt the wight,

Nor fond regret delay him,

Nor Love himself can hold the elf,
Nor sober Friendship stay him,

We'll drink to-night, with hearts as light,
To loves as gay and fleeting

As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim,
And break on the lips while meeting.

CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN.

A HEALTH.

I FILL this cup to one made up
Of loveliness alone,

A woman, of her gentle sex
The seeming paragon;
To whom the better elements

And kindly stars have given A form so fair, that, like the air, 'Tis less of earth than heaven.

Her every tone is music's own,
Like those of morning birds,
And something more than melody
Dwells ever in her words;
The coinage of her heart are they,
And from her lips each flows
As one may see the burden'd bee
Forth issue from the rose.

Affections are as thoughts to her,

The measures of her hours;
Her feelings have the fragrancy,
The freshness of young flowers;
And lovely passions, changing oft,
So fill her, she appears

The image of themselves by turns,-
The idol of past years!

Of her bright face one glance will trace
A picture on the brain,

And of her voice in echoing hearts
A sound must long remain ;
But memory, such as mine of her,
So very much endears,

When death is nigh my latest sigh
Will not be life's but hers.

I fill this cup to one made up
Of loveliness alone,

A woman, of her gentle sex

The seeming paragon,—

Her health! and would on earth there stood

Some more of such a frame,

That life might be all poetry,

And weariness a name.

EDWARD COATE PINKNEY.

LOVE'S CALENDAR.

THE Summer comes and the Summer goes;
Wild-flowers are fringing the dusty lanes,

The swallows go darting through fragrant rains, Then, all of a sudden-it snows.

Dear Heart, our lives so happily flow,

So lightly we heed the flying hours.

We only know Winter is gone-by the flowers, We only know Winter is come-by the snow.

T. B. ALDRICH.

ACROSS THE FIELDS TO ANNE.
How often in the summer-tide,

His graver business set aside,

Has stripling Will, the thoughtful-eyed,
As to the pipe of Pan

Stepped blithesomely with lover's pride
Across the fields to Anne!

It must have been a merry mile,

This summer stroll by hedge and stile,
With sweet foreknowledge all the while

How sure the pathway ran

To dear delights of kiss and smile,

Across the fields to Anne.

The silly sheep that graze to-day,

I wot, they let him go his way,

Nor once looked up, as who would say:

"It is a seemly man."

For many lads went wooing aye
Across the fields to Anne.

The oaks, they have a wiser look ;
Mayhap they whispered to the brook :
"The world by him shall yet be shook,
It is in nature's plan;

Though now he fleets like any rook
Across the fields to Anne."

And I am sure, that on some hour
Coquetting soft 'twixt sun and shower,
He stooped and broke a daisy-flower
With heart of tiny span,

And bore it as a lover's dower
Across the fields to Anne.

While from her cottage garden-bed
She plucked a jasmine's goodlihede,
To scent his jerkin's brown instead ;
Now since that love began,

What luckier swain than he who sped
Across the fields to Anne?

The winding path whereon I pace,

The hedgerows green, the summer's grace, Are still before me face to face;

Methinks I almost can

Turn poet and join the singing race

Across the fields to Anne !

RICHARD BURTON.