"Never sign a walentine with your "Won't do," said Sam. own name." "Sign it 'Pickvick,' then," said Mr. Weller; "its a wery good name, and a easy one to spell.” "The wery thing," said Sam. "I could end with a werse; what do you think?" "I don't like it, Sam," rejoined Mr. Weller. "I never know'd a respectable coachman as wrote poetry, 'cept one, as made an affectin' copy o' werses the night afore he wos hung for a highway robbery; and he wos only a Cambervell man, so even that's no rule." But Sam was not to be dissuaded from the poetical idea that had occurred to him, so he signed the letter— "Your love-sick THE POOR AND THE RICH.-JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. THE rich man's son inherits lands, And piles of brick and stone and gold, A heritage, it seems to me, The rich man's son inherits cares. The bank may break, the factory burn, A heritage, it seems to me, What does the poor man's son inherit? THE ENCHANTED ISLE.-BENJ. F. TAYLOR. A WONDERFUL stream is the river Time, As it runs through the realm of tears, How the winters are drifting, like flakes of snow, And the summers like buds between, And the years in the sheaf, so they come and they go, On the river's breast, with its ebb and flow, As it glides in the shadow and sheen. There's a musical isle up the river Time, And the tunes with the roses are staying; And the name of this isle is the Long Ago; There, are brows of beauty and bosoms of snow; There are fragments of songs, that nobody sings, There's a lute unswept, and a harp without strings, And the garments she used to wear. There are hands that are waved, when the fairy shore By the mirage is lifted in air; And we sometimes hear through the turbulent roar Sweet voices we heard in the days gone before, When the wind down the river is fair. Oh! remembered for aye, be the blessed isle, And when evening comes with the beautiful smile, PYRAMUS AND THISBE. PYRAMUS AND THISBE.-J. G. SAXE. THIS tragical tale, which, they say, is a true one, In a style, to be sure, of remarkable fullness, Young PETER PYRAMUS-I call him Peter, And in one of the worst of pagan climes Either noble or boor Had such a thing as a Christian name— He was rather green, That is to say, he was just eighteen,― a nice young man as ever was seen, And fit to dance with a May-day queen! Now Peter loved a beautiful girl And every young blade, Are wont to do before they grow staid, 160 But (a-lack-a-day, for the girl and boy !) So Thisbe's father and Peter's mother Began the young couple to worry and bother, Of a marriage deterred, Or even deferred, By any contrivance so very absurd As scolding the boy, and caging his bird?— But removing a brick Made a passage-though rather provokingly small. Will manage to creep through the smallest of holes! 'Twas here that the lovers, intent upon love, Laid a nice little plot To meet at a spot Near a mulberry-tree in a neighboring grove; For the plan was all laid, By the youth and the maid, (Whose hearts, it would seem, were uncommonly bold ones,) To run off and get married in spite of the old ones. In the shadows of evening, as still as a mouse, While waiting alone by the trysting tree, As e'er you set eye on, |