Shrewd maters watch Phyllis and Bessie and Fred,—­
Each smile and each look and each toss of the head,—­
And wonder and ponder and figure and scheme,
While fortune and fashion ’gainst love tip the beam. 
  For Bessie’s dark locks
  And Phyllis’s smart frocks
  Are but snares to entrap the society fox. 
Pray, how can a bachelor be at his ease
With such artful devices at afternoon teas?

JOHN CLINTON ANTHONY.
Brown Magazine.

O Mores!

Cupid’s bow is lying broken,
Fallen on the ground,
And his arrows all with blunted
Points are strewn around. 
For to reach our modern hearts
Powerless are the blind god’s darts,
From his rosy shoulders stripped;
Since, to pierce the breasts so cold,
Shafts must always be of gold,
Arrows must be diamond-tipped.

ALBERT ELLSWORTH THOMAS.
Brunonian.

Which?

Blonde or brunette?  Shall Ethel fair,
My winter girl, with golden hair,
Or Maud, whose dark brown eyes bewitch,—­
My summer girl,—­now govern? 
Which?

Shall cold Bostonianism rule? 
Shall Love teach Browning in his school? 
Or shall coy glances, passion-rich,
Compel my fond allegiance? 
Which?

And yet the solving’s really clear. 
For winter’s gone and summer’s here. 
I want no statue in a niche,
So Cupid says, “Let Maud be
‘Which!’”

W.C.  NICHOLS.
Harvard Lampoon.

Then and Now.

When first we met she was three feet high,
  And three, I think, was her age as well,
A touch of the heaven was in her eye;
I cannot say she was very shy,
(As you’ll see by her actions by and by),
  But the way I behaved I blush to tell.

We met at a party, on the stair;
  She was decked in ribbons and silk galore,
She smiled with a most bewitching air,
And then, I’m afraid, I pulled her hair. 
You know you can’t expect savoir-faire
  Of a cavalier of the age of four!

She only laughed with her subtle charm,
  And took it more sweetly than you’d have believed,
But later she really took alarm—­
When she wanted to kiss me I pinched her arm,
And she ran away to escape from harm;
  At which, no doubt, I was much relieved.

She did not offer to kiss again;
  I saw her go off with another beau. 
She pretended to hold up her ten-inch train,
And whispered low to her new-found swain. 
I was eating ice-cream with might and main,—­
And that was some seventeen years ago.

I see her to-night on the winding stair,
She replies with a smile to my sober bow;
The palms lean lovingly toward her hair,
And her foot keeps time to a distant air. 
I’m afraid she does not recall or care—­
She does not offer to kiss me now!

Heigho!  What a sad, what a sweet affair,
What a curious mixture life seems to be! 
I am fast in the net of love, and there,
With another man on the winding stair,
Is the girl I love,—­and I pulled her hair
When she wanted a kiss at the age of three!