L'ENVOI.

These last I spoke. Then Florence said,
Below me," Dreams? Delusions, Fred!"
Next, with a pause,-she bent the while
Over a rose, with roguish smile-
"But how disgusted, Sir, you'll be
To hear I scrawled that 'Dorothy.'

AVICE

AVICE

"On serait tenté de lui dire, Bonjour, Mademoiselle la Bergeronnette."-VICTOR HUGO.

HOUGH the voice of modern schools

THOUGH

Has demurred,

'Tis averred,

By the dreamy Asian creed

That the souls of men, released
From their bodies when deceased,

Sometimes enter in a beast,—
Or a bird.

I have watched you long, Avice,

Watched you so,

I have found your secret out;

And I know

That the restless ribboned things,

Where your slope of shoulder springs,

Are but undeveloped wings

That will grow.

When you enter in a room,

It is stirred

With the wayward, flashing flight

Of a bird;

And you speak—and bring with you
Leaf and sun-ray, bud and blue,
And the wind-breath and the dew,
At a word.

When you called to me my name,
Then again

When I heard your single cry
In the lane,

All the sound was as the "sweet"
Which the birds to birds repeat
In their thank-song to the heat
After rain.

When you sang the Schwalbenlied,

'Twas absurd,

But it seemed no human note

That I heard;

For your strain had all the trills,

All the little shakes and stills,

Of the over-song that rills

From a bird.

You have just their eager, quick

"Airs de tête,"

All their flush and fever-heat

When elate;

Every bird-like nod and beck,

And a bird's own curve of neck

When she gives a little peck

To her mate.

AVICE

When you left me, only now,

In that furred,

Puffed, and feathered Polish dress,

I was spurred

Just to catch you, O my Sweet,
By the bodice trim and neat,-
Just to feel your heart a-beat,

Like a bird.

Yet, alas! Love's light you deign

But to wear

As the dew upon your plumes,

And you care

Not a whit for rest or hush;

But the leaves, the lyric gush,

And the wing-power, and the rush
Of the air.

So I dare not woo you, Sweet,

For a day,

Lest I lose you in a flash,

As I may;

Did I tell you tender things,

You would shake your sudden wings;—

You would start from him who sings,

And away.

IF

THE LOVE-LETTER

“J'ai vu les mœurs de mon tems, et j'ai publié cette lettre.” -LA NOUVELLE HELOÏSE,

F this should fail, why then I scarcely know What could succeed. Here's brilliancy (and

banter),

Byron ad lib., a chapter of Rousseau ;

If this should fail, then tempora mutantur; Style's out of date, and love, as a profession, Acquires no aid from beauty of expression.

"The men who think as I, I fear, are few,"

(Cynics would say twere well if they were fewer); "I am not what I seem,”—(indeed, 'tis true; Though, as a sentiment, it might be newer); "Mine is a soul whose deeper feelings lie More deep than words "-(as these exemplify).

"I will not say when first your beauty's sun
Illumed my life,"-(it needs imagination);
"For me to see you and to love were one,”-
(This will account for some precipitation);
"Let it suffice that worship more devoted
Ne'er throbbed," et cætera. The rest is quoted.