ESTIVATION.

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ÆSTIVATION.

AN UNPUBLISHED POEM, BY MY LATE LATIN TUTOR.

N candent ire the solar splendor flames;

IN

The foles, languescent, pend from arid rames ;

His humid front the cive, anheling, wipes,
And dreams of erring on ventiferous ripes.

How dulce to vive occult to mortal eyes,
Dorm on the herb with none to supervise,
Carp the suave berries from the crescent vine,
And bibe the flow from longicaudate kine!

To me, alas! no verdurous visions come,
Save yon exiguous 'pool's conferva-scum,
No concave vast repeats the tender hue
That laves my milk-jug with celestial blue!

Me wretched! Let me curr to quercine shades!
Effund your albid hausts, lactiferous maids!
O, might I vole to some umbrageous clump, –
Depart, be off, excede, - evade, - erump!

THE OLD MAN DREAMS.

FOR one hour of youthful joy!

Give back my twentieth spring! I'd rather laugh a bright-haired boy Than reign a gray-beard king!

Off with the wrinkled spoils of age
Away with learning's crown!
Tear out life's wisdom-written page,
And dash its trophies down!

One moment let my life-blood stream
From boyhood's fount of flame!
Give me one giddy, reeling dream
Of life all love and fame!

-My listening angel heard the prayer,

And, calmly smiling, said, "If I but touch thy silvered hair,

Thy hasty wish hath sped.

"But is there nothing in thy track
To bid thee fondly stay,
While the swift seasons hurry back
To find the wished for day?"

Ah, truest soul of womankind! Without thee, what were life? One bliss I cannot leave behind :

I'll taken.y-precious-wife!

THE OLD MAN DREAMS.

- The angel took a sapphire pen And wrote in rainbow dew, "The man would be a boy again,

And be a husband too!"

—“And is there nothing yet unsaid ·
Before the change appears?
Remember, all their gifts have fled
With those dissolving years!"

Why, yes; for memory would recall
My fond paternal joys;

I could not bear to leave them all;

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.

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WHAT WE ALL THINK.

HAT age was older once than now,

THA

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.

That mother, sister, wife, or child

The "best of women

دو

each has known.

Were schoolboys ever half so wild?

How young the grandpapas have grown!

That but for this our souls were free,

And but for that our lives were blest; That in some season yet to be

Our cares will leave us time to rest.

Whene'er we groan with ache or pain,
Some common ailment of the race,
Though doctors think the matter plain,
That ours is "a peculiar case."

That when like babes with fingers burned
We count one bitter maxim more,
Our lesson all the world has learned,
And men are wiser than before.

WHAT WE ALL THINK.

That when we sob o'er fancied woes,
The angels hovering overhead
Count every pitying drop that flows,
And love us for the tears we shed.

That when we stand with tearless eye
And turn the beggar from our door,
They still approve us when we sigh,
“Ah, had I but one thousand more!”

Though temples crowd the crumbled brink
O'erhanging truth's eternal flow,

Their tablets bold with what we think,
Their echoes dumb to what we know;

That one unquestioned text we read,
All doubt beyond, all fear above,
Nor crackling pile nor cursing creed
Can burn or blot it: GOD IS LOVE!

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