'Midst the humming of praises and glances of beaux That greet our fair maiden wherever she goes, Brown slipped like a shadow, grim, silent, and black, With a look of anxiety, close in her track. Once he whispered aside in her delicate ear A sentence of warning,--it might be of fear: "Don't stand in a draught, if you value your life." (Nothing more,--such advice might be given your wife Or your sweetheart, in times of bronchitis and cough, Without mystery, romance, or frivolous scoff.) But hark to the music; the dance has begun. The closely draped windows wide open are flung; The notes of the piccolo, joyous and light, Like bubbles burst forth on the warm summer night. Round about go the dancers; in circles they fly; Trip, trip, go their feet as their skirts eddy by; And swifter and lighter, but somewhat too plain, Whisks the fair circumvolving Miss Addie De Laine. Taglioni and Cerito well might have pined For the vigor and ease that her movements combined; E'en Rigelboche never flung higher her robe In the naughtiest city that's known on the globe. 'Twas amazing, 'twas scandalous; lost in surprise, Some opened their mouths, and a few shut their eyes. But hark! At the moment Miss Addie De Laine, Circling round at the outer edge of an ellipse Which brought her fair form to the window again, From the arms of her partner incautiously slips! And a shriek fills the air, and the music is still, And the crowd gather round where her partner forlorn Still frenziedly points from the wide window-sill Into space and the night; for Miss Addie was gone! Gone like the bubble that bursts in the sun; Gone like the grain when the reaper is done; Gone like the dew on the fresh morning grass; Gone without parting farewell; and alas! Gone with a flavor of hydrogen gas! When the weather is pleasant, you frequently meet A white-headed man slowly pacing the street; His trembling hand shading his lack-lustre eye, Half blind with continually scanning the sky. Rumor points him as some astronomical sage, Re-perusing by day the celestial page; But the reader, sagacious, will recognize Brown, Trying vainly to conjure his lost sweetheart down, And learn the stern moral this story must teach, That Genius may lift its love out of its reach. A LEGEND OF COLOGNE