To my Cigar.

ES, social friend, I love thee well,
In learned doctor's spite:

YE

Thy cloud all other clouds dispel And lap me in delight.

What though they tell, with phizzes long,
My years are sooner passed!
I would reply with reason strong,
They're sweeter while they last.

When in the lonely evening hour,
Attended but by thee,

O'er history's varied page I pore,
Man's fate in thine I see.

Oft as the snowy column grows,
Then breaks and falls away,

I trace how mighty realms thus rose,
Thus tumbled to decay.

60

Awhile

To My Cigar.

Awhile like thee earth's masters burn
And smoke and fume around,

And then like thee, to ashes turn
And mingle with the ground.

Life's but a leaf adroitly rolled,
And Time's the wasting breath
That late or early we behold
Gives all to dusty death.

From beggar's frieze to monarch's robe
One common doom is passed;

Sweet Nature's works, the swelling globe,
Must all burn out at last.

And what is he who smokes thee now?

A little moving heap,

That soon, like thee, to fate must bow,
With thee in dust must sleep.

But though thy ashes downward go,
Thy essence rolls on high;

Thus when my body lieth low
My soul shall cleave the sky.

61

Charles Sprague, 1791 — 1876.

Rosalind's

L

Rosalind's Madrigal.

OVE in my bosom like a bee

Doth suck his sweet:

Now with his wings he plays with me,

Now with his feet.

Within mine eyes he makes his nest,

His bed amidst my tender breast:

My kisses are his daily feast,

And yet he robs me of my rest.

Ah, wanton, will ye?

And if I sleep, then percheth he

With pretty flight,

And makes his pillow of my knee

The live-long night.

Strike I my lute, he tunes the string,

He music plays if so I sing,

He lends me every lovely thing:

Yet cruel he my heart doth sting:
Whist, wanton, still ye!

Rosalind's Madrigal.

Else I with roses every day

Will whip you hence:

And bind you, when you long to play,
For your offense.

I'll shut mine eyes to keep you in,
I'll make you fast it for your sin,
I'll count your power not worth a pin;
Alas, what hereby shall I win,

If he gainsay me?

What if I beat the wanton boy
With many a rod?

He will repay me with annoy,
Because a god.

Then sit thou safely on my knee,

And let thy bower my bosom be;
Lurk in my eyes I like of thee:

O, Cupid so thou pity me,

63

Spare not, but play thee.

From "Euphues Golden Legacie," 1592.

By Thomas Lodge.

John

John Anderson My Fo.

J

OHN ANDERSON my jo, John,
When we were first acquent,

Your locks were like the raven,
Your bonnie brow was brent;
But now your brow is beld, John,
Your locks are like the snaw;
But, blessings on your frosty pow,
John Anderson, my jo.

John Anderson my jo, John,

We clamb the hill thegither; And monie a cantie day, John, We've had wi' ane anither: Now we maun totter down, John, But hand in hand we'll go, And sleep thegither at the foot, John Anderson, my jo.

Robert Burns, 1759—1796.

The