To blend their beauty with my rhyme.

While slowly o'er its candid bowl
The color deepens (as the soul
That burns in mortals leaves its trace
Of bale or beauty on the face),
I'll think,--So let the essence rare
Of years consuming make me fair;
So, 'gainst the ills of life profuse,
Steep me in some narcotic juice;
And if my soul must part with all
That whiteness which we greenness call,
Smooth back, O Fortune, half thy frown,
And make me beautifully brown!

Dream-forger, I refill thy cup
With reverie's wasteful pittance up,
And while the fire burns slow away,
Hiding itself in ashes gray,
I'll think,--As inward Youth retreats,
Compelled to spare his wasting heats,
When Life's Ash-Wednesday comes about,
And my head's gray with fires burnt out,
While stays one spark to light the eye,
With the last flash of memory,
'Twill leap to welcome C.F.B.,
Who sent my favorite pipe to me.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

MY PIPE.

When love grows cool, thy fire still warms me;
When friends are fled, thy presence charms me.
If thou art full, though purse be bare,
I smoke, and cast away all care!

_German Smoking Song._

THE FARMER'S PIPE.

Make a picture, dreamy smoke,
In my still and cosey room;
From the fading past evoke
Forms that breathe of summer's bloom.

Bashful Will and rosy Nell--
Ah, I watch them now at play
By the mossy wayside well
As I did twelve years to-day.

We were younger then, my pipe:
You are dingy now and worn;
And my fruit is more than ripe,
And my fields are brown and shorn.

Nell has merry eyes of blue,
And is timid, pure, and mild;
Will is fair and brave and true,
And a neighboring farmer's child.

Little maid is busy, too,
Making rare, fictitious pies,
Just as any wife would do,
Looking, meanwhile, wondrous wise.

Drawing water from the well,
Delving sand upon the hill,
Going here and there for Nell,--
That's her helpmate, willing Will.

Yonder, in the waning light,
Hand in hand the truants come,
Nell so fearful lest the night
Should fall around her far from home.

Fading, fading, skyward flies
This joy-picture you have limned;
Pipe of mine, the quiet skies
Of my life you leave undimmed.

Nell and Will are lovers now;
There they stray in dying light.
That's a kiss! Ah, well, somehow
Nell's no more