Age, my James, that from the cheek of
       Beauty steals its rosy hue,
     Has not left us much to speak of: 
       But ’tis not for this I rue. 
     Beauty with its thousand graces,
       Hair and tints that will not fade,
     You may get from many places
       Practically ready-made.

     No; it is the evanescence
       Of those lovelier tints of Hope—­
     Bubbles, such as adolescence
       Joys to win from melted soap—­
     Emphasizing the conclusion
       That the dreams of Youth remain
     Castles that are An delusion
      (Castles, that’s to say, in Spain).

     Age thinks ‘fit,’ and I say ‘fiat.’ 
       Here I stand for Fortune’s butt,
     As for Sunday swains to shy at
       Stands the stoic coco-nut. 
     If you wish it put succinctly,
       Gone are all our little games;
     But I thought I ’d say distinctly
       What I feel about it, James.

WHY THIS VOLUME IS SO THIN.

     In youth I dreamed, as other youths have dreamt,
       Of love, and thrummed an amateur guitar
     To verses of my own,—­a stout attempt
       To hold communion with the Evening Star
     I wrote a sonnet, rhymed it, made it scan. 
     Ah me! how trippingly those last lines ran.—­

     O Hesperus!  O happy star! to bend
       O’er Helen’s bosom in the tranced west,
     To match the hours heave by upon her breast,
       And at her parted lip for dreams attend—­
     If dawn defraud thee, how shall I be deemed,
     Who house within that bosom, and am dreamed?

     For weeks I thought these lines remarkable;
       For weeks I put on airs and called myself
     A bard:  till on a day, as it befell,
       I took a small green Moxon from the shelf
     At random, opened at a casual place,
     And found my young illusions face to face

     With this:—­’Still steadfast, still unchangeable,
       Pillow’d upon my fair Love’s ripening breast
     To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
       Awake for ever in a sweet unrest;
     Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
     And so live ever,—­or else swoon to death.’

     O gulf not to be crossed by taking thought! 
       O heights by toil not to be overcome! 
     Great Keats, unto your altar straight I brought
       My speech, and from the shrine departed dumb. 
   —­And yet sometimes I think you played it hard
     Upon a rather hopeful minor bard.

NUGAE OXONIENSES.

TWILIGHT.

By W—­ll—­m C—­wp—­r.