Does this dream fade?  Another comes
    To fill its place and more. 
  In castles silvern roam we now,
    They’re ours!  All!  All are ours! 
  What’er the wreathing rings enfold
    Drops shimmering golden showers!

  No sordid cost our steps can stay,
    We travel free as air. 
  Our wings are fancies, incense-borne,
    That feather-light upbear. 
  Begone! ye powers of steam and flood. 
    Thy roads creep far too slow;
  We need thee not.  My pipe and I
    Swifter than Time must go.

  Why, what is this?  The pipe gone out? 
    Well, well, the fire’s out, too! 
  The dreams are gone—­we’re poor once more;
    Life’s pain begins anew. 
  ’Tis time for sleep, my faithful pipe,
    But may thy dreamings be,
  Through slumbering hours hued as bright
    As those thou gav’st to me!

ELTON J. BUCKLEY.

SIC TRANSIT.

  Just a note that I found on my table,
    By the bills of a year buried o’er,
  In a feminine hand and requesting
    My presence for tennis at four.

  Half remorseful for leaving it lying
    In surroundings unworthy as those,
  I carefully dusted and smoothed it,
    And mutely begged pardon of Rose.

  But I thought with a smile of the proverb
    Which says you may treat as you will
  The vase which has once contained roses,
    Their fragrance will cling to it still.

  For the writer I scarcely remember,
    The occasion has vanished afar,
  And the fragrance that clings to the letter
    Recalls—­an Havana cigar.

W.B.  ANDERSON.

THE BETROTHED.

“YOU MUST CHOOSE BETWEEN ME AND YOUR CIGAR.”

  Open the old cigar-box, get me a Cuba stout,
  For things are running crossways, and Maggie and I are out.

  We quarrelled about Havanas—­we fought o’er a good cheroot,
  And I know she is exacting, and she says I am a brute.

  Open the old cigar-box—­let me consider a space;
  In the soft blue veil of the vapor, musing on Maggie’s face.

  Maggie is pretty to look at,—­Maggie’s a loving lass,
  But the prettiest cheeks must wrinkle, the truest of loves must
          pass.

  There’s peace in a Laranaga, there’s calm in a Henry Clay,
  But the best cigar in an hour is finished and thrown away,—­

  Thrown away for another as perfect and ripe and brown,—­
  But I could not throw away Maggie for fear o’ the talk o’ the town!

  Maggie my wife at fifty,—­gray and dour and old,—­
  With never another Maggie to purchase for love or gold!

  And the light of Days that have Been the dark of the Days that Are,
  And Love’s torch stinking and stale, like the butt of a dead
          cigar,—­