Mem’ries of maids, with azure eyes,
      In dewy dells, ’neath June’s soft skies,
        Faces that more he’ll only see
          In wreaths of smoke.

  Eheu, eheu! how fast Time flies,—­
  How youth-time passion droops and dies,
    And all the countless visions flee! 
    How worn would all those faces be,
  Were they not swathed in soft disguise
        In wreaths of smoke!

FRANK NEWTON HOLMAN.

ASHES.

  Wrapped in a sadly tattered 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.