Sweet dark eyes, upon me turning,
Challenge if I dare,
Vie with amorous sunbeams burning
O’er her face and hair.

But a truce to idle musing—­
That was long ago. 
Was she gracious or refusing? 
You may never know.

Winter’s snows those fields are hiding
’Neath a robe of white,
For another she is biding
Tryst of love to-night.

I was only glancing over
  A book beloved of yore,
When a sprig of mountain clover
  Fluttered to the floor.

IRVILLE C. LECOMPTE.
Wesleyan Literary Monthly.

[Illustration:  A WESLEYAN GIRL.]

The Soul’s Kiss.

Not your sweet, red lips, dear,
Tremulous with sighs,
Lest their passion dull love’s rapture;
Kiss me with your eyes.

Gleam on Cupid’s wing, dear,
At the least touch flies,
Even lips may brush to dimness;
Kiss me with your eyes.

Pain within the bliss, dear,
Of those soft curves lies;
Only love the soul’s light carries;
Kiss me with your eyes.

MAUD THOMPSON.
Wellesley Magazine.

A Portrait.

A slim, young girl, in lilac quaintly dressed;
A mammoth bonnet, lilac like the gown,
  Hangs from her arm by wide, white strings, the crown
Wreathed round with lilac blooms; and on her breast
A cluster; lips still smiling at some jest
  Just uttered, while the gay, gray eyes half frown
  Upon the lips’ conceit; hair, wind-blown, brown
Where shadows stray, gold where the sunbeams rest.

Ah! lilac lady, step from your gold frame,
Between that starched old Bishop and the dame
  In awe-inspiring ruff.  We’ll brave their ire
And trip a minuet.  You will not?—­Fie! 
Those mocking lips half make me wish that I,
  Her grandson, might have been my own grandsire.

Trinity Tablet.

A Picture.

On spinet old, Clarissa plays
The melodies of by-gone days. 
Forgotten fugue, a solemn tune,
The bars of stately rigadoon. 
With head bent down to scan each note,
A crimson ribbon round her throat,
The very birds to sing forget
As some old-fashioned minuet
Clarissa plays.

King George long since has passed away,
And minuets have had their day. 
Within a hidden attic nook
Covered with dust, her music-book. 
Gone are the keys her fingers pressed. 
The bunch of roses at her breast. 
But still, unmindful of time’s flight,
With face so fair and hands so white,
Clarissa plays.

EDWARD B. REED.
Yale Literary Magazine.

Tildy in the Choir.

Lines that ripple, notes that dance,
Foreign measures brought from France,
Reaching with a careless ease
From high C to—­where you please,
Clever, frivolous, and gay—­
These will answer in their way;
But that tune of long ago—­
Stately, solemn, somewhat slow
(Dear “Old Hundred”—­that’s the air)—­
Will outrank them anywhere;
Once it breathed a seraph’s fire. 
(Tildy sang it in the choir.)