Old books to read!

Ay, bring those nodes of wit,
The brazen-clasped, the vellum writ,
Time-honored tomes!

The same my sire scanned before,
The same my grandsire thumbed o'er,
The same his sire from college bore,
The well-earned meed

Of Oxford's domes:

Old Homer blind,

Old Horace, rake Anacreon, by
Old Tully, Plautus, Terence lie;
Mort Arthur's olden minstrelsie,

Quaint Burton, quainter Spenser, ay!
And Gervase Markham's venerie-

Nor leave behind

The Holye Book by which we live and die.

Old friends to talk!—

Ay, bring those chosen few,

The wise, the courtly, and the true,
So rarely found;

Him for my wine, him for my stud,
Him for my easel, distich, bud
In mountain walk!

Bring Walter good:

With soulful Fred; and learned Will, And thee, my alter ego (dearer still

For every mood).

These add a bouquet to my wine!

These add a sparkle to my pine!

If these I tine,

Can books, or fire, or wine be good?

ROBERT HINCKLEY MESSINGER.

Wreathe the Bowl.

WREATHE the bowl

With flowers of soul, The brightest wit can find us; We'll take a flight Towards heaven to-night, And leave dull earth behind us! Should Love amid The wreaths be hid That Joy, the enchanter, brings us,

Say, why did Time
His glass sublime

Fill up with sands unsightly,

When wine he knew

Runs brisker through,

And sparkles far more brightly?
Oh, lend it us,

And, smiling thus,

The glass in two we'd sever,
Make pleasure glide

In double tide,

And fill both ends for ever!

Then wreathe the bowl With flowers of soul, The brightest wit can find us; We'll take a flight Towards heaven to-night, And leave dull earth behind us! THOMAS MOORE.

173

Sparkling and Bright.

SPARKLING and bright in liquid light,

Does the wine our goblets gleam in;
With hue as red as the rosy bed

Which a bee would choose to dream in.
Then fill to-night, with hearts as light,

To loves as gay and fleeting

As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim, And break on the lips while meeting.

Oh! if Mirth might arrest the flight

Of Time through Life's dominions,

We here a while would now beguile
The graybeard of his pinions,

To drink to-night, with hearts as light,
To loves as gay and fleeting

As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim,
And break on the lips while meeting.

But since Delight can't tempt the wight,
Nor fond Regret delay him,

Nor Love himself can hold the elf,

Nor sober Friendship stay him,

We'll drink to-night, with hearts as light,
To loves as gay and fleeting

As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim,
And break or the lips while meeting.
CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN.

Champagne Rosé.

LILY on liquid roses floating

So floats yon foam o'er pink champagne. Fain would I join such pleasant boating, And prove that ruby main,

And float away on wine!

Those seas are dangerous, graybeards swear,
Whose sea-beach is the goblet's brim ;
And true it is they drown old Care-
But what care we for him,

So we but float on wine!

And true it is they cross in pain,

Who sober cross the Stygian ferry; But only make our Styx champagne, And we shall cross right merry, Floating away in wine!

Old Charon's self shall make him mellow,
Then gayly row his boat from shore;
While we, and every jovial fellow,
Hear, unconcerned, the oar,
That dips itself in wine!

JOHN KENYON.

Fill the Bumper fair.

FILL the bumper fair!

Every drop we sprinkle O'er the brow of care Smooths away a wrinkle. Wit's electric flame

Ne'er so swiftly passes

As when through the frame

It shoots from brimming glasses. Fill the bumper fair;

Every drop we sprinkle O'er the brow of care

Smooths away a wrinkle.

Sages can, they say,

Grasp the lightning's pinions, And bring down its ray

From the starred dominions:So we, sages, sit,

And, 'mid bumpers bright'ning, From the heaven of wit

Draw down all its lightning.

Wouldst thou know what first
Made our souls inherit
This ennobling thirst

For wine's celestial spirit?
It chanced upon that day,

When, as bards inform us, Prometheus stole away

The living fires that warm us:

The careless youth, when up To Glory's fount aspiring, Took nor urn nor cup

To hide the pilfered fire in. But oh his joy, when, round

The halls of heaven spying, Among the stars, he found

A bowl of Bacchus lying!

Some drops were in that bowl,
Remains of last night's pleasure,
With which the sparks of soul
Mixed their burning treasure.
Hence the goblet's shower
Hath such spells to win us;
Hence its mighty power

O'er that flame within us.
Fill the bumper fair!

Every drop we sprinkle O'er the brow of care Smooths away a wrinkle.

THOMAS MOORE.

And doth not a Meeting like this.

AND doth not a meeting like this make amends

For all the long years I've been wand'ring away To see thus around me my youth's early friends, As smiling and kind as in that happy day? Though haply o'er some of your brows, as o'er mine,

The snow-fall of Time may be stealing-what then?

Like Alps in the sunset, thus lighted by wine, We'll wear the gay tinge of Youth's roses again. What softened remembrances come o'er the heart, In gazing on those we've been lost to so long! The sorrows, the joys, of which once they were part, Still round them, like visions of yesterday, throng;

As letters some hand hath invisibly traced,

When held to the flame will steal out on the sight,

So many a feeling, that long seemed effaced,

The warmth of a moment like this brings to light.

And thus, as in memory's bark we shall glide,
To visit the scenes of our boyhood anew,
Though oft we may see, looking down on the tide,
The wreck of full many a hope shining through;
Yet still, as in fancy we point to the flowers

That once made a garden of all the gay shore, Deceived for a moment, we'll think them still ours, And breathe the fresh air of life's morning once

more.

How Stands the Glass Around ?

How stands the glass around?
For shame! ye take no care, my boys;
How stands the glass around?
Let mirth and wine abound.

The trumpets sound;

The colors they are flying, boys.

To fight, kill, or wound,

May we still be found
Content with our hard fare, my boys
On the cold ground.

Why, soldiers, why

Should we be melancholy, boys!
Why, soldiers, why,

Whose business 'tis to die?
What, sighing? fie!

Don't fear, drink on, be jolly, boys!
"Tis he, you, or 1!

Cold, hot, wet or dry,
We're always bound to follow, boys,
And scorn to fly.