no doubt, is woman,
The subtlest study that the mind can scan,
Of all deep problems, heavenly or human!

But of all studies in the round of learning,
From nature's marvels down to human toys,
To minds well fitted for acute discerning,
The very queerest one is that of boys!

If to ask questions that would puzzle Plato,
And all the schoolmen of the Middle Age,--
If to make precepts worthy of old Cato,
Be deemed philosophy, your boy's a sage!

If the possession of a teeming fancy,
(Although, forsooth, the younker doesn't know it,)
Which he can use in rarest necromancy,
Be thought poetical, your boy's a poet!

If a strong will and most courageous bearing,
If to be cruel as the Roman Nero;
If all that's chivalrous, and all that's daring,
Can make a hero, then the boy's a hero!

But changing soon with his increasing stature,
The boy is lost in manhood's riper age,
And with him goes his former triple nature,--
No longer Poet, Hero, now, nor Sage!

* * * * *

=_396._= SONNET TO A CLAM.

Inglorious friend! most confident I am
Thy life is one of very little ease;
Albeit men mock thee with their similes,
And prate of being "happy as a clam!"
What though thy shell protects thy fragile head
From the sharp bailiffs of the briny sea?
Thy valves are, sure, no safety-valves to thee,
While rakes are free to desecrate thy bed,
And bear thee off,--as foemen take their spoil,--
Far from thy friends and family to roam;
Forced, like a Hessian, from thy native home,
To meet destruction in a foreign broil!
Though thou art tender, yet thy humble bard
Declares, O clam! thy case is shocking hard!

* * * * *

=_Lucy Hooper, 1816-1841._= (Manual, p. 524.)

=_397._= "THE DEATH-SUMMONS."

A voice is on mine ear--a solemn voice:
I come, I come, it calls me to my rest;
Faint not, my yearning heart; rejoice, rejoice;
Soon shalt thou reach the gardens of the blest:
On the bright waters there, the living streams,
Soon shalt thou launch in peace thy weary bark,
Waked by rude waves no more from gentle dreams,
Sadly to feel that earth to thee is dark--
Not bright as once; O, vain, vain memories, cease,
I cast your burden down--I strive for peace.

I heed the warning voice: oh, spurn me not,
My early friend; let