AN OLD BACHELOR

'Twas raw, and chill, and cold outside,
With a boisterous wind untamed,
But I was sitting snug within,
Where my good log-fire flamed.
As my clock ticked,
My cat purred,
And my kettle sang.
I read me a tale of war and love,
Brave knights and their ladies fair;
And I brewed a brew of stiff hot-scotch
To drive away dull care.
As my clock ticked,
My cat purred,
And my kettle sang.
At last the candles sputtered out,
But the embers still were bright,
When I turned my tumbler upside down,
An' bade m'self g' night!
As th' ket'l t-hic-ked,
The clock purred,
And the cat (hic) sang!
Tudor Jenks.

SONG

Three score and ten by common calculation
The years of man amount to; but we'll say
He turns four-score, yet, in my estimation,
In all those years he has not lived a day.
Out of the eighty you must first remember
The hours of night you pass asleep in bed;
And, counting from December to December,
Just half your life you'll find you have been dead.
To forty years at once by this reduction
We come; and sure, the first five from your birth,
While cutting teeth and living upon suction,
You're not alive to what this life is worth.
From thirty-five next take for education
Fifteen at least at college and at school;
When, notwithstanding all your application,
The chances are you may turn out a fool.
Still twenty we have left us to dispose of,
But during them your fortune you've to make;
And granting, with the luck of some one knows of,
'Tis made in ten—that's ten from life to take.
Out of the ten yet left you must allow for
The time for shaving, tooth and other aches,
Say four—and that leaves, six, too short, I vow, for
Regretting past and making fresh mistakes.
Meanwhile each hour dispels some fond illusion;
Until at length, sans eyes, sans teeth, you may
Have scarcely sense to come to this conclusion—
You've reached four-score, but haven't lived a day!
J. R. Planché.

THE QUEST OF THE PURPLE COW

He girded on his shining sword,
He clad him in his suit of mail,
He gave his friends the parting word,
With high resolve his face was pale.
They said, "You've kissed the Papal Toe,
To great Moguls you've made your bow,
Why will you thus world-wandering go?"
"I never saw a purple cow!"
"I never saw a purple cow!
Oh, hinder not my wild emprise—
Let me depart! For even now
Perhaps, before some yokel's eyes
The purpling creature dashes by,
Bending its noble, hornèd brow.
They see its glowing charms, but I—
I never saw a purple cow!"
"But other cows there be," they said,
"Both cows of high and low degree,
Suffolk and Devon, brown, black, red,
The Ayrshire and the Alderney.
Content yourself with these." "No, no,"
He cried, "Not these! Not these! For how
Can common kine bring comfort? Oh!
I never saw a purple cow!"
He flung him to his charger's back,
He left his kindred limp and weak,
They cried: "He goes, alack! alack!
The unattainable to seek."
But westward still he rode—pardee!
The West! Where such freaks be; I vow,
I'd not be much surprised if he
Should some day see
A
Purple
Cow!
Hilda Johnson.

ST. PATRICK OF IRELAND, MY DEAR!