On a cold, gray rock, in Grecian seas,
      The sirens sit, and their glamour try—­
    Warm white bosoms press harps of gold,
      The while Ulysses’ ship sails by. 
    Fair are the forms the sailors see,
      Sweet are the songs the sailors hear
    And—­cool and wary, shrewd and old,
      The sirens’ mothers are watching near,

    Whispering counsel—­“Fling back your hair,
      It hides your shoulder.”  “Don’t sing so fast!”
    “Darling, don’t look at that fair young man,
      Try that old fellow there by the mast,
    His arms are jewelled”—­let it go! 
      Too bitter all this for an idle rhyme;
    But sirens are kin of the gods, be sure,
      And change but little with lapse of time.

    PER ASPERA AD ASTRA.

    A canvas-back duck, rarely roasted, between us,
      A bottle of Chambertin, worthy of praise—­
    Less noble a wine at our age would bemean us—­
      A salad of celery en mayonnaise,
    With the oysters we’ve eaten, fresh, plump, and delicious,
      Naught left of them now but a dream and the shells;
    No better souper e’en Lucullus could wish us—­
      Why, even our waiter regards us as swells.

    Your dress is a marvel, your jewels show finely,
      Your friends in the circle all envied your box;
    You say Lilli Lehman sang quite too divinely—­
      I know I can’t lose on that last deal in stocks. 
    Without waits our footman to call for our carriage—­
      Gad, how he must hate us, out there in the cold!—­
    We rode in a hack on the day of our marriage,
      Number two forty-six—­I was rolling in gold,

    For I’d quite fifty dollars; and don’t you remember
      We drove down to Taylor’s, a long cherished dream: 
    How grandly I ordered—­just think, in December!—­
      Some cake, and two plates of vanilla ice-cream. 
    And how we enjoyed it!  Your glance was the proudest
      Among the proud beauties, your face the most fair;
    I’m rather afraid, too, your laugh was the loudest;
      I know we shocked every one—­we didn’t care.

    Now we’d care a great deal—­with two sons at college,
      And daughters just out, whose sneers make you wince,
    We’ve tasted the fruit of Society’s knowledge—­
      I don’t think we’ve quite enjoyed anything since. 
    All through, dear?  Now, don’t wipe your mouth with the doily! 
      They’re really not careful at all with their wine;
    It wasn’t half warmed—­the salad was oily—­
      And I don’t think the duck was remarkably fine.

    THE LANGUAGE OF LOVE.

    Oh! he was a student of mystic lore;
      And she was a soulful girl
    All nerves and mind, of the cultured kind
      The paragon, pride, and pearl.

    They loved with a neo-Concordic love,
      Woofed weirdly with wistful woe. 
    They sat in a glen, remote from men,
      Their converse was high and low.