wn, _The
Ailsa Craig Banner_.

III.

A VILLAGE TOPER.

John loved strong waters and ne'er stirred his feet
Abroad in leafy spring or summer's heat,
Autumnal breeze or winter's rimy chill,
Unsolaced by the nectar of the still.
Spirits came always kindly to his lips,
And time he measured not by hours but "nips."
Teetotalers to him were curse and gall,
Grim Banquos at the world's wide festival,
Men, whom a weird and fate-ordained bale,
Had smitten with the hate of cakes and ale,
A soda-water, syphon-squirting crew,
Guilty of treason to the revenue:
Their lurid language and their unctuous warnings,
Their moral-pointings and their tale-adornings,
And, worst of all, their shameful _waste of ink_
In signing pledges to abstain from drink,
Proved them a witless and a churlish band,
Unfit to dwell in any Christian land.

IV.

A REVEREND HELLENIST.

In that old ivied manse exists
A scholar, wrinkled, bent, and gray,
His student lamp gleams through the mists
And twinkles on till break of day.

This sage is wedded to his books,
And Sultan-like his harem's full,
He dotes upon them in their nooks
With love and joy that never cool.

No wonder that his back is bent,
Or that his eye has mystic glows,
He pores on pages redolent
Of love and love's undying rose.

No earthly maiden, fresh and sweet,
Could please his fancy half so well
As a Greek nymph with twinkling feet
Skipping in some Arcadian dell.

V.

ANTIGONE

(READ IN A HIGHLAND MANSE).

A form of beauty blent with hardihood,
Majestic as Olympus wreathed in snows,
What modern pages of romance disclose
A radiant maiden of such dauntless mood!
Yet, when the tyrant strives with outrage rude
The unyielding maid in darkness to enclose,
Then, only then, her burning heart outflows
In anguished cries of love, but unsubdued
By baser throbbings. Ah! that nuptial hymn
Unsung! that bond in death! All men agree
To crown thee in that chamber dark and dim
With love's immortal wreath, Antigone.
Since love and duty in thy death combine,
An immortality of praise is thine.

VI.

SHADOWS OF THE MANSE.

I.

Lo! we have him of shaven face
And curls of long and lustrous hair,
Who breathes an atmosphere of grace
And has a wondrou