Some delightful one of Austin
Dobson's rhymes.

O Priscilla, sweet Priscilla,
Writing of you makes me think,
As I burn my brown Manila
And immortalize my ink,
How well satisfied these poets
Ought to be with what they do
When, especially, they know it's
Read by such a girl as you:
I who sing of you would marry
Just the kind of girl you are,
One who doesn't care to carry
Her poetic taste too far,
One whose fancy is a bright one,
Who is fond of poems fine,

And appreciates a light one
Such as mine.

FRANK DEMPSTER SHERMAN.

HE

Abraham and Ephraim.

E sermonized industriously in his didactic way, And moralized momentously with Ephraim every day,

And taught by tale and proverb and by every good device

The virtuousness of virtue and the viciousness of vice.

His hortatory homilies, intended to impress

The rightfulness of righteousness, the sin of sinful

ness,

Were ever hurled at Ephraim throughout the whole year long,

That he might rightly comprehend the wrongfulness of wrong.

“A youth can grow up virtuous, if we but pay the price;

If we but saturate his soul with showers of advice; If we instill," said Abraham, "perpetual truth in him — "

And so in truth perpetually he soaked young Ephraim.

The youth absorbed a sermon every morning ere he ate,

On the awful reprobation of the awful reprobate; And he swallowed moral theses that were meant to

edify,

And he masticated maxims with his gingerbread and pie.

And 'twixt breakfast time and dinner the iniquity of

sin

Was taught to him industriously and patiently rubbed

in;

The turpidness of turpitude was duly analyzed

And the evil of depravity was loudly advertised.

And then right after dinner the enormity of crime And the wrong of immortality was preached till supper time.

Then Abraham would sermonize through all the evening hours,

And drench young Ephraim's consciousness in moralistic showers.

Thus through cumulative precept did old Abraham

desire

Accumulative virtue should young Ephraim acquire;

He taught him virtue endlessly, and waited long to

see

How superlatively virtuous young Ephraim would be.

Thus maxim-goaded Ephraim found righteousness a bore.

For salve is but an irritant when jammed into a sore;
Even bread is innutritious if you resolutely cram
An indiscriminate bakery down the bursting dia-
phragm.

Thus by hortatory homilies did Abraham impress The wrongfulness of righteousness, the good of sinfulness;

And taught by tale and proverb and by every good device,

The viciousness of virtue and the virtuousness of vice.

Hence, Ephraim lived a reckless life and died a felon's death,

But gave this vindication with his latest dying breath : "I have been sermonized to death; I die, to speak precise,

An unprotected victim of perpetual advice."

SAM WALTER FOSS.

Waban Ripple.'

THE Wellesley girls say,
As at vespers they pray:

"Help us good maids to be;
Give us patience to wait
Till some subsequent date:
World without men, - ah me!"

1 "Cap and Gown."

ANONYMOUS.