How very odd that poets should suppose There is no poetry about a nose, When plain as is man’s nose upon his face, A nose-less face would lack poetic grace! Noses have sympathy, a lover knows: Noses are always touched, when lips are kissing; And who would care to kiss, if nose were missing? “BEWARE OF PAINT.” A lover sat down with his love by his side, With a countenance joyous, and beaming with pride. As he gazed on the blending of beauty and art, A thrill of delight filled his innermost heart; And, revelling there in his visions of bliss, He thought to obtain from the fair one a kiss. But ere he had gained the much-coveted prize, The scales of love’s blindness dropped off of his eyes; For he marked the fixed hue of the maidenly blush, And detected the carmine that passed for a flush Of the life-giving tide, with its ebb and its flow, Like a lake in the sunset with reddening glow. “Faugh!” thought he,—“is’t only a semblance, fair saint, Of beauty and youth,—only powder and paint? Have I been deceived by the likeness of truth, By counterfeit bloom and by parodied youth? Ah, that beautiful brow I was wont to declare Did vie with the lily, so white and so fair, I find to my sorrow, and e’en to love’s blight, Owes its blanch to enamel or pure lily-white! No, no, I decline! I relinquish the bliss I had hoped to derive from a rapturous kiss, Lest the mark of the brush I might haply erase, And leave a significant print on her face; Nor more will I fondly encircle her neck, Lest the counterfeit fairness my sleeve may bedeck, And I care not to bear on demonstrative arms Such manifest mark of decadence of charms.” W. M. PEGRAM. THE SHADOWS. In the twilight gloom The family sat in the sitting-room, Chatting the hour away Before tea, While Kate and I were watching the gray Of evening descend o’er the sea, As in a bow-window stood we. We talked of times That touched our hearts as the evening’s chimes; Holding her hand in mine,— Happy me! And as we looked at the stars that shine, I kissed her, and she kissed me, As in a bow-window stood we. Then oped the door, And the light of a lamp fell on the floor; While a maid did call Them to tea. And, as they turned, this sight saw all,— Shadows were kissing on the wall, As in a bow-window kissed we. THE SMACK IN SCHOOL.