Falloit-it que le ciel me rendit amoureux,
Amoureaux, jouissant d'une beauté craintive,
Craintive à recevoir douceur excessive,
Excessive au plaisir qui rend l'amant heureux?
Heureux si nous avions quelques paisibles lieux,
Lieux où plus surement l'ami fidèle arrive,

Arrive sans soupçon de quelque ami attentive,
Attentive à vouloir nous surprendre tous deux.

Subjoined are examples in our own vernacular :

TO DEATH.

The longer life, the more offence;
The more offence, the greater pain;
The greater pain, the less defence;
The less defence, the lesser gain-
The loss of gain long ill doth try,
Wherefore, come, death, and let me die.

The shorter life, less count I find;

The less account, the sooner made;
The count soon made, the merrier mind;
The merrier mind doth thought invade-
Short life, in truth, this thing doth try,
Wherefore, come, death, and let me die.

Come, gentle death, the ebb of care;

The ebb of care the flood of life;
The flood of life, the joyful fare;

The joyful fare, the end of strife-
The end of strife that thing wish I,
Wherefore, come, death and let me die.

TRUTH.

Nerve thy soul with doctrines noble,
Noble in the walks of Time,
Time that leads to an eternal,
An eternal life sublime;
Life sublime in moral beauty,
Beauty that shall ever be,
Ever be to lure thee onward,
Onward to the fountain free;
Free to every earnest seeker,

Seeker at the Fount of Youth,

Youth exultant in its beauty,

Beauty found in the quest of Truth.

TRYING SKYING.

Long I looked into the sky,

Sky aglow with gleaming stars,
Stars that stream their courses high,
High and grand, those golden cars,
Cars that ever keep their track,
Track untraced by human ray,
Ray that zones the zodiac,
Zodiac with milky-way,

Milky-way where worlds are sown,
Sown like sands along the sea,
Sea whose tide and tone e'er own,
Own a feeling to be free,
Free to leave its lowly place,

Place to prove with yonder spheres,
Spheres that trace athrough all space,
Space and years-unspoken years.

A RINGING SONG.

The following gem is from an old play of Shakspeare's time, called The True Trojans :—

The sky is glad that stars above
Do give a brighter splendor;
The stars unfold their flaming gold,
To make the ground more tender:
The ground doth send a fragrant smell,
That air may be the sweeter;
The air doth charm the swelling seas
With pretty chirping metre;

The sea with rivers' water doth

Feed plants and flowers so dainty;
The plants do yield their fruitful seed,
That beasts may live in plenty;
The beasts do give both food and cloth,
That men high Jove may honor;
And so the World runs merrily round,
When Peace doth smile upon her!
Oh, then, then oh! oh then, then oh!
This jubilee last forever;

That foreign spite, or civil fight,
Our quiet trouble never!

Bouts Rimés.

BOUTS RIMÉS, or Rhyming Ends, afford considerable amusement. They are said by Goujet to have been invented by Dulot, a French poet, who had a custom of preparing the rhymes of sonnets, leaving them to be filled up at leisure. Having been robbed of his papers, he was regretting the loss of three hundred sonnets. His friends were astonished that he had written so many of which they had never heard. "They were blank sonnets," said he, and then explained the mystery by describing his "Bouts Rimés." The idea appeared ridiculously amusing, and it soon became a fashionable pastime to collect some of the most difficult rhymes, and fill up the lines. An example is appended:

nettle,

pains.

mettle.

remains.

natures.

rebel.

graters.
well.

The rhymes may be thus completed :

Tender-handed stroke a nettle,

And it stings you for your pains;
Grasp it like a man of mettle,

And it soft as silk remains.
"Tis the same with common natures,
Use them kindly, they rebel;
But be rough as nutmeg-graters,
And the rogues obey you well.

A sprightly young belle, who was an admirer of poetry, would often tease her beau, who had made some acquaintance with the muses, to write verses for her. One day, becoming quite importunate, she would take no denial. "Come, pray, do now write some poetry for me-won't you? I'll help you out. I'll

furnish you with rhymes if you will make lines for them. Here now:

He at length good-humoredly complied, and filled up the measure as follows:

To a form that is faultless, a face that must-please,

Is added a restless desire to-tease;

O, how my hard fate I should ever be-moan,
Could I but believe she'd be bone of my-bone!

Mr. Bogart, a young man of Albany, who died in 1826, at the age of twenty-one, displayed astonishing facility in impromptu writing.

It was good-naturedly hinted on one occasion that his "impromptus" were prepared beforehand, and he was asked if he would submit to the application of a test of his poetic abilities. He promptly acceded, and a most difficult one was immediately proposed.

Said

Among his intimate friends were Col. J. B. Van Schaick and Charles Fenno Hoffman, both of whom were present. Van Schaick, taking up a copy of Byron, "The name of Lydia Kane" (a lady distinguished for her beauty and cleverness, who died a few years ago, but who was then just blushing into womanhood) "has in it the same number of letters as a stanza of Childe Harold has lines: write them down in a column." They were so written by Bogart, Hoffman, and himself. "Now," he continued, "I will open the poem at random; and for the ends of the lines in Miss Lydia's Acrostic shall be used the words ending those of the verse on which my finger may rest." The stanza thus selected was this:

And must they fall, the young, the proud, the brave,

To swell one bloated chief's unwholesome reign?

No step between submission and a grave?

The rise of rapine and the fall of Spain?

And doth the Power that man adores ordain

Their doom, nor heed the suppliant's appeal?

Is all that desperate valor acts in vain?

And counsel sage, and patriotic zeal,

The veteran's skill, youth's fire, and manhood's heart of steel?

The following stanza was composed by Bogart within the succeeding ten minutes, the period fixed in a wager,-finished before his companions had reached a fourth line, and read to them as here presented :*

Lovely and loved, o'er the unconquered
Your charms resistless, matchless girl, shall
Dear as the mother holds her infant's
In Love's own region, warm, romantic

A nd should your fate to court your steps
Kings would in vain to regal pomp
And lordly bishops kneel to you in

N or valor's fire, law's power, nor churchman's
Endure 'gainst love's (time's up!) untarnished

brave

reign!

grave

Spain !

ordain,

appeal,

vain,

zeal

steel.

The French also amuse themselves with bouts rimés retournés, in which the rhymes are taken from some piece of poetry, but the order in which they occur is reversed. The following example is from the album of a Parisian lady of literary celebrity, the widow of one of the Crimean heroes. The original poem is by Alfred de Musset, the retournés by Marshal Pelissier, who improvised it at the lady's request. In the translation which ensues, the reversed rhymes are carefully preserved.

BY DE MUSSET.

Quand la fugitive espérance

Nous pousse le coude en passant,

Puis à tire d'ailes s'élance

Et se retourne en souriant,

Où va l'homme? où son cœur l'appelle;
L'hirondelle suit le zéphir,

Et moins légère est l'hirondelle
Que l'homme qui suit son désir.

Ah! fugitive enchanteresse,
Sais-tu seulement ton chemin ?
Faut-il donc que le vieux destin
Ait une si jeune maîtresse!

BY PELISSIER, DUC DE MALAKOFF.

Pour chanter la jeune maîtresse

Que Musset donne au vieux destin,

The truth of this circumstance was subsequently confirmed by Mr. Hoffman (whose memory is still vigorous) in the course of a conversation at the Pennsylvania State Lunatic Hospital.