diacea,--

"When beside thee walked the solemn Plesiosaurus,
And all around thee crept the festive Ichthyosaurus,
While from time to time above thee flew and circled
Cheerful Pterodactyls;--

"Tell us of thy food,--those half-marine refections,
Crinoids on the shell, and Brachipods _au naturel_,--
Cuttle-fish to which the _pieuvre_ of Victor Hugo
Seems a periwinkle.

"Speak, thou awful vestige of the Earth's creation--
Solitary fragment of remains organic!
Tell the wondrous secret of thy past existence--
Speak! thou oldest primate!"

Even as I gazed, a thrill of the maxilla,
And a lateral movement of the condyloid process,
With post-pliocene sounds of healthy mastication,
Ground the teeth together.

And, from that imperfect dental exhibition,
Stained with expressed juices of the weed Nicotian,
Came these hollow accents, blent with softer murmurs
Of expectoration:

"Which my name is Bowers, and my crust was busted
Falling down a shaft in Calaveras county,
But I'd take it kindly if you'd send the pieces
Home to old Missouri!"

_Bret Harte._

ODE TO WORK IN SPRINGTIME

Oh, would that working I might shun,
From labour my connection sever,
That I might do a bit--or none
Whatever!

That I might wander over hills,
Establish friendship with a daisy,
O'er pretty things like daffodils
Go crazy!

That I might at the heavens gaze,
Concern myself with nothing weighty,
Loaf, at a stretch, for seven days--
Or eighty.

Why can't I cease a slave to be,
And taste existence beatific
On some fair island, hid in the
Pacific?

Instead of sitting at a desk
'Mid undone labours, grimly lurking--
Oh, say, what is there picturesque
In working?

But no!--to loaf were misery!--
I love to work! Hang isles of coral!
(To end this otherwise would be
Immoral!)

_Thomas R. Ybarra._

OLD STUFF

If I go to see the play,
Of the story I am certain;
Promptly it gets under way
With the lifting of the curtain.
Builded all that's said and done
On the ancient recipe--
'Tis the same old Two and One:
_A and B in love with C_.

If I read the latest book,
There's the mossy situation;
One may confidently look
For the trite triangulation.
Old as time, but ever new,
Seemingly, this tale of Three--
Same old yarn of One and Two:
_A and C in love with B_