tered gown,
Alone I puff my brier brown,
And watch the ashes settle down
In lambent flashes;
While thro' the blue, thick, curling haze,
I strive with feeble eyes to gaze,
Upon the half-forgotten days
That left but ashes.

Again we wander through the lane,
Beneath the elms and out again,
Across the rippling fields of grain,
Where softly flashes
A slender brook 'mid banks of fern,
At every sigh my pulses burn,
At every thought I slowly turn
And find but ashes.

What made my fingers tremble so,
As you wrapped skeins of worsted snow,
Around them, now with movements slow
And now with dashes?
Maybe 'tis smoke that blinds my eyes,
Maybe a tear within them lies;
But as I puff my pipe there flies
A cloud of ashes.

Perhaps you did not understand,
How lightly flames of love were fanned.
Ah, every thought and wish I've planned
With something clashes!
And yet within my lonely den
Over a pipe, away from men,
I love to throw aside my pen
And stir the ashes.

DE WITT STERRY.

CHOOSING A WIFE BY A PIPE OF TOBACCO.

Tube, I love thee as my life;
By thee I mean to choose a wife.
Tube, thy _color_ let me find,
In her _skin_, and in her _mind_.
Let her have a _shape_ as fine;
Let her breath be sweet as thine;
Let her, when her lips I kiss,
_Burn_ like thee, to give me bliss;
Let her, in some _smoke_ or other,
All my failings kindly smother.
Often when my thoughts are _low_,
Send them where they ought to go;
When to study I incline,
Let her aid be such as thine;
Such as thine the charming power
In the vacant social hour.
Let her live to give delight,
Ever _warm_ and ever _bright_;
Let her deeds, whene'er she dies,
Mount as incense to the skies.

_Gentleman's Magazine_.

MY THREE LOVES.

When Life was all a summer day,
And I was under twenty,
Three loves were scattered in my way--
And three at once are plenty.
Three hearts, if offered with a grace,
One thinks not of refusing;
The task in this especial case
Was only that of choosing.
I knew not which to make my pet,--
My pipe, cigar, or cigarette.

To cheer my night or glad my day
My pipe was ever willing;
The meerschaum or the lowly clay
Alike repaid the filling.
Grown men delight in blowing clouds,
As boys in blowing bubbles,
Our cares to puff away in crowds