He plays along with might and main,
Be it foul or fair, be it snow or rain,
And, oh! it is that constant strain,
That plunk, plunk, plunkety, plunk, plunk.

You sit here in your room and swear,
But he can’t hear, nor does he care,
Only goes on playing that same old air,
The plunk, plunk, plunkety, plunk, plunk.

It is his hope that some fine day
On the Banjo Club they’ll let him play,
But he won’t if we have aught to say,
With his plunk, plunk, plunkety, plunk, plunk.

WILLARD GROSVENOR BLEYER.
The Badger.

Varium et Mutabile.

I saw her going to the game,
Her eyes were bright, her cheeks aflame,
And o’er her shoulders lightly fell
A Princeton scarf, her choice to tell.

I saw her when the game was o’er,
A loyal Nassau maid no more;
To Yale, the victor, now she’s true—­
Her yellow scarf was lined with blue.

J. P. SAWYER,
Yale Record.

In His Own Country.

I made myself a poet in the place,
  And blithely sang of college life and ways,
The pleasure of the undergraduate pace,
  And all the joy between the holidays;
No care spoke ever in my careless song,
  From graver strains I kept my pipe apart,
And played the upper notes; ah, was it wrong
  To dream my music reached the student heart?

Upon a day one said, with kind intent: 
  “Why sing forever of these trivial things? 
For better music was your piping meant;
  Will you confess such earth-restricted wings? 
Strike some Byronic chord, sublime and deep,
  Find in ethereal flight the upper air,
And speak to us some word that we may keep
  Within our hearts and ever treasure there!”

Then, with one pang for wasted hours, I gave
  Another meaning to my faltering lay,
And sang of Life and Pain, an early grave,
  Hope and Despair, and Love that lives alway;
But when I listened for an echoing heart,
  I saw all other lips with laughter curl,
And heard them whisper jestingly apart,
“He’s got it bad, poor fool; we know the girl!”

CHARLES KELLOGG FIELD.
Sequoia.

His Letter.

“Dear Father: 
               Please excuse,” he wrote,
“The hurried shortness of this note,
But studies so demand attention
That I have barely time to mention
That I am well, and add that I
Lack funds; please send me some.  Good-by. 
Your loving son.” 
                He signed his name,
And hastened to the—­foot-ball game.

W.R.  HEREFORD.
Harvard Lampoon.

The Unwilling Muse.

Oh nothing in all life worse is,
  For abating superfluous pride,
Than having to scribble on verses
  With the editor waiting outside;
I am hearing a lecture on Shelley,
  Where I ought to be able to dream,
But my brain is as vapid as jelly. 
  And I cannot alight on a theme.