She seems like an ideal love,

The poetry of childhood shown,
And yet loved with a real love,
As if she were our own,-

A younger sister for the heart;

Like the woodland pheasant,

Her hair is brown and bright; And her smile is pleasant,

With its rosy light.

Never can the memory part

With Red Riding Hood, the darling,

The flower of fairy lore.

Did the painter, dreaming
In a morning hour,
Catch the fairy seeming
Of this fairy flower?

Winning it with eager eyes
From the old enchanted stories,
Lingering with a long delight
On the unforgotten glories

Of the infant sight?

Giving us a sweet surpise

In Red Riding Hood, the darling,
The flower of fairy lore?

Too long in the meadow staying,
Where the cowslip bends,
With the buttercups delaying
As with early friends,

Did the little maiden stay.
Sorrowful the tale for us;

We, too, loiter 'mid life's flowers,

A little while so glorious,

So soon lost in darker hours.

All love lingering on their way,
Like Red Riding Hood, the darling,
The flower of fairy lore.

DICK AND I.

MISS MULOCK.

We're going to a party, my brother Dick and I, The best, grandest party we ever did try;

And I'm very happy-but Dick is so shy!

I've got a white ball-dress, and flowers in my hair, And a scarf, with a brooch too, mamma let me

wear:

Silk stockings and shoes with high heels, I declare!

There is to be music-a real soldier's band:
And I mean to waltz, and eat ice, and be fanned
Like a grown-up young lady, the first in the land.

But Dick is so stupid, so silent and shy;

Has never learnt dancing so says he won't tryYet Dick is both older and wiser than I.

And I'm fond of my brother-this darling old
Dick:

I'll hunt him in corners wherever he stick,
He's bad at a party-but at school he's a brick!

So good at his Latin, at cricket, football,
Whatever he tries at. And then he's so tall!
Yet at play with the children he's best of us all.

And his going to the party is just to please me, Poor Dick! so good-natured. How dull he will be!

But he says I shall dance "like a wave o' the sea."

That's Shakspere, his Shakspere, he worships him

So,

Our Dick he writes poems, though none will he show;

I found out his secret, but I won't tell: no, no.

And when he's a great man, a poet, you see,
O dear! what a proud little sister I'll be;

Hark! there comes the carriage. We're off, Dick and me.

THE SENTIMENTAL GARDENER. Translation of JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN.

Once there was a gardener,

Who sang all day a dirge to his poor flowers;
He often stooped and kissed 'em

After thunder-showers:

His nerves were delicate, though fresh air is deemed a hardener

Of the human system.

Many a moon went over,

And still his death-bell tale was told and tolled,

His tears, like rain in winter,
Dribbling slow and cold:

Voici the song itself,-I send it under cover

To my Leipsic printer.

"Weary, I am weary!

No rest from raking till I reach my goal!

Here, like a tulip trampled,

Lose I heart and soul;

Sure such a death-in-life as mine, so dark, so

dreary,

Must be unexampled.

"Hence, when droughty weather Has dulled the spirits of my violets, Medreams I feel as though I

Should have slight regrets

Were they and I just then to droop and die together,

Watched and wept by no eye.

"O gazelle-eyed Princess! Granddaughter of the Sultan of Cathay! The knave of spades beseeches

Thee by night and day:

He dies to lay before thee samples of his quinces, Apricots and peaches!

"Questionless thy Highness

Must wonder why I play the Absent Man;
Yet if I pitch my lonely

Tent in Frankistan,

Attribute, O full moon! the blame, not to my shyness,

But to my planet only.