eyes,
As glowing as the summer and as tender as the skies.

I can see the pink sunbonnet and the little checkered dress
She wore when first I kissed her, and she answered the caress
With the written declaration that, "as surely as the vine
Grew round the stump," she loved me,--that old sweetheart of mine!

And again I feel the pressure of her slender little hand,
As we used to talk together of the future we had planned:
When I should be a poet, and with nothing else to do
But write the tender verses that she set the music to;

When we should live together in a cozy little cot,
Hid in a nest of roses, with a fairy garden-spot,
Where the vines were ever fruited, and the weather ever fine,
And the birds were ever singing for that old sweetheart of mine;

And I should be her lover forever and a day,
And she my faithful sweetheart till the golden hair was gray;
And we should be so happy that when either's lips were dumb
They would not smile in heaven till the other's kiss had come.

But ah! my dream is broken by a step upon the stair,
And the door is softly opened, and my wife is standing there!
Yet with eagerness and rapture all my visions I resign
To greet the living presence of that old sweetheart of mine.

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY.

A PIPE OF TOBACCO.

Let the learned talk of books,
The glutton of cooks,
The lover of Celia's soft smack--O!
No mortal can boast
So noble a toast
As a pipe of accepted tobacco.

Let the soldier for fame,
And a general's name,
In battle get many a thwack--O!
Let who will have most,
Who will rule the rooste,
Give me but a pipe of tobacco.

Tobacco gives wit
To the dullest old cit,
And makes him of politics crack--O!
The lawyers i' the hall
Were not able to bawl,
Were it not for a whiff of tobacco.

The man whose chief glory
Is telling a story,
Had never arrived at the smack--O!
Between ever heying,
And as I was saying,
Did he not take a whiff of tobacco.

The doctor who places
Much skill in grimaces,
And feels your pulse running tic-tack--O!
Would you know his chief skill?
It is only to fill
And smoke a good pipe of tobacco.

The courtiers alone
To this weed are not prone;
Would you know what 'tis makes them so slack--O?