while wrath he nursed. 
  ‘Who was the next proprietor?’ please say. 
  ‘My father:’  thus the king replied straightway. 
  ‘Who hired it then upon your father’s death?’
  ‘I did,’ King IBRAM answered, out of breath. 
  ‘When you shall die, who shall within it dwell?’
  ‘My son,’ the King replied.  ‘Why ask’st thou?  Tell!’
  ‘IBRAM!’ then spoke the dervish to him straight,
  ’I’ll answer thee, nor longer make thee wait. 
  The place where travelers come, and go as well,
  Is, really, not a palace, but—­hotel!’

Yea, friends; and, as another genial poet has discovered, life itself is but a hostelrie or tavern, where some get the highest rooms, while others, of greater social weight, gravitate downwards into the first story, sinking like gold to the bottom of the hotel pan,—­that is O.W.  HOLMES’, his idea, reader, not ours. Apropos of HOLMES and kings—­his thousands of reader friends have ere this seen with pleasure that the Emperor of all the French was not unmindful of one of his brother-potentates,—­in the world of song,—­when he paid OLIVER WENDELL the courteous compliment which has of late gone the rounds, and which conferred as much honor on the giver as the taker thereof.

* * * * *

The Spring poems have begun. Vide licet.

  TO AN EARLY BIRD.

  In homely phrase we oft are told
    ’Tis early birds that catch the worms;
  But certainly that Spring bird there
     Don’t half believe the aforesaid terms.

  He’s sorry that he hither flew,
     In hopes a forward March to find,
  And towards warm climates, whence he came,
     To backward march is sore inclined.

  Lured by one ray of sunlight, he
     Flew northward to our land of snow;
  And now, with frozen toes, he stands
     On frozen earth:—­the worms—­below!

  Tu whit! whit! whit! he tries in vain
     To whistle in a cheerful way;
  He feels he’s badly sold, and that—­
     He came too early in the day.

  I sprinkle seed and crumbs around;
    He quickly flies and famished eats:—­
  He would have starved to death had he
    Relied on proverb-making cheats.

* * * * *

Of the same up-Springings, in higher vein, we have the following:—­

  APRIL.

  BY ED. SPRAGUE RAND.

  Now with the whistling rush of stormy winds,
    ’Mid weeping skies and smiling, sunny hours,
  Comes the young Spring, and scatters, from the pines,
    O’er the brown—­woodland soft, balsamic showers.

  Wake, azure squirrel cups, on grassy hills! 
    Peep forth, blue violets, upon the heath! 
  The epigraea from the withered leaves
    Sends out the greeting of her perfumed breath.

  Nodding anemones within the wood
    Shake off the winter’s sleep, and haste to greet;
  Where in the autumn the blue asters stood,
    The saxifrage creeps out, with downy feet.