YESTERDAY AND TODAY.

“Last night, dear Antoinette,”

(’Tis thus a wooer writes,

Whose thoughts are deeply set

On love’s profound delights,)

“Asleep within my chair

Thy vision I did greet,

And, joy beyond compare,

I dreamed I kissed thee, sweet.”

Ah, she was hurt, I fear,

For, seeming ill at ease,

She wrote, “To me it’s clear

Thou’rt taking liberties.

Such notions overthrow,

Pray take to other schemes;

’Tis well that thou shouldst know

I don’t believe in dreams.”

Yet strange that when today

I kissed her—oh, the bliss,

The charm, the spell, that lay

In that ecstatic kiss,—

No fault she found; it seems,

O maid of mysteries,

That though she likes not dreams

She courts realities!

Nathan M. Levy.