SELIM:  Eclectic Magazine.

A SYMPHONY IN SMOKE.

  A pretty, piquant, pouting pet,
  Who likes to muse and take her ease,
  She loves to smoke a cigarette;

  To dream in silken hammockette,
  And sing and swing beneath the trees,
  A pretty, piquant, pouting pet.

  Her Christian name is Violet;
  Her eyes are blue as summer skies;
  She loves to smoke a cigarette.

  As calm as babe in bassinette,
  She swingeth in the summer breeze,
  A pretty, piquant, pouting pet.

  She ponders o’er a novelette;
  Her parasol is Japanese;
  She loves to smoke a cigarette.

  She loves a fume without a fret;
  Her frills are white, her frock cerise,—­
  A pretty, pouting, piquant pet.

  She almost goes to sleep, and yet,
  Half-lulled by booming honey-bees,
  She loves to smoke a cigarette.

A winsome, clever, cool coquette, Who flouts all Grundian decrees,—­ pretty, pouting, piquant pet, That loves to smoke a cigarette.

Harper’s Bazaar.

IT MAY BE WEEDS.

  It may be weeds
    I’ve gathered too;
  But even weeds may be
    As fragrant as
    The fairest flower
  With some sweet memory.

ANON.

SEASONABLE SWEETS.

“DON’T BE FLOWERY, JACOB.”—­CHARLES DICKENS.

  When the year is young, what sweets are flung
    By the violets, hiding, dim,
  And the lilac that sways her censers high,
    Whilst the skylark chants a hymn! 
  How sweet is the scent of the daffodil bloom,
    When blithe spring decks each spray,
  And the flowering thorn sheds rare perfume
    Through the beautiful month of May! 
  What a dainty pet is the mignonette,
    Whose sweets wide scattered are! 
  But sweeter to me than all these yet
    Is the scent of a prime cigar!

  Delicious airs waft the fields of June,
    When the beans are all in flower;
  The woodruff is fragrant in the hedge,
    And the woodbine in the bower. 
  Sweet eglantine doth her garlands twine
    For the blithe hours as they run,
  And balmily sighs the meadow-sweet,
    That is all in love with the sun,
  Whilst new-mown hay o’er the hedgerows gay
    Flings odorous airs afar;
  Yet sweeter than these on the passing breeze
    Is the scent of a prime cigar.

  When all the beauties of Flora’s court
    Smile on the gay parterre,
  What glorious color, what exquisite form,
    And dainty scents are there! 
  They bask in the beam, and bend by the stream,
    Like beautiful nymphs at play,
  Holding dew-pearls up in each nectar cup
    To the glorious God of Day. 
  Oh, their lives are sweet, but all too brief,
    And death doth their sweetness mar;
  But fragrance fine is forever thine,
    My well-beloved cigar!