CUPID DROWNED.

“Cupid Drowned” (1784-1859), “Cupid Stung” (1779-1852), and “Cupid and
 My Campasbe” (1558-1606) are three dainty poems recommended by Mrs.
 Margaret Mooney, of the Albany Teachers’ College, in her “Foundation
 Studies in Literature.”  Children are always delighted with them.

    T’other day as I was twining
    Roses, for a crown to dine in,
    What, of all things, ’mid the heap,
    Should I light on, fast asleep,
    But the little desperate elf,
    The tiny traitor, Love, himself! 
    By the wings I picked him up
    Like a bee, and in a cup
    Of my wine I plunged and sank him,
    Then what d’ye think I did?—­I drank him. 
    Faith, I thought him dead.  Not he! 
    There he lives with tenfold glee;
    And now this moment with his wings
    I feel him tickling my heart-strings.

LEIGH HUNT.

 CUPID STUNG.

    Cupid once upon a bed
    Of roses laid his weary head;
    Luckless urchin, not to see
    Within the leaves a slumbering bee. 
    The bee awak’d—­with anger wild
    The bee awak’d, and stung the child. 
    Loud and piteous are his cries;
    To Venus quick he runs, he flies;
   “Oh, Mother!  I am wounded through—­
    I die with pain—­in sooth I do! 
    Stung by some little angry thing,
    Some serpent on a tiny wing—­
    A bee it was—­for once, I know,
    I heard a rustic call it so.” 
    Thus he spoke, and she the while
    Heard him with a soothing smile;
    Then said, “My infant, if so much
    Thou feel the little wild bee’s touch,
    How must the heart, ah, Cupid! be,
    The hapless heart that’s stung by thee!”

THOMAS MOORE.

 CUPID AND MY CAMPASBE.

    Cupid and my Campasbe played
    At cards for kisses.  Cupid paid. 
    He stakes his quiver, bow and arrows,
    His mother’s doves and team of sparrows. 
    Loses them, too; then down he throws
    The coral of his lips, the rose
    Growing on his cheek, but none knows how;
    With them the crystal of his brow,
    And then the dimple of his chin. 
    All these did my Campasbe win. 
    At last he set her both his eyes;
    She won and Cupid blind did rise. 
    Oh, Love, hath she done this to thee! 
    What shall, alas, become of me!

JOHN LYLY.

 A BALLAD FOR A BOY.

 Violo Roseboro, one of our good authors, brought to me “A Ballad for a
 Boy,” saying:  “I believe it is one of the poems that every child ought
 to know.”  It is included in this compilation out of respect to her
 opinion and also because the boys to whom I have read it said it was
“great,” The lesson in it is certainly fine.  Men who are true men want
 to settle their own disputes by a hand-to-hand fight, but they will
 always help each other when a third party or the elements interfere. 
 Humanity is greater than human interests.