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THE MAIDEN'S CHOICE.

GENTEEL in personage,

Conduct and equipage;

Noble by heritage,

Generous and free;

Brave, not romantic;

Learned, not pedantic;

Frolic, not frantic:

This must he be.

Honor maintaining,
Meanness disdaining,

Still entertaining,

Engaging and new;

Neat, but not finical;

Sage, but not cynical;

Never tyrannical,

But ever true.

ANONYMOUS.

I'M GROWING OLD.

My days pass pleasantly away,

My nights are blest with sweetest sleep;

I feel no symptoms of decay,

I have no cause to mourn nor weep;

My foes are impotent and shy,

My friends are neither false nor cold;

And yet, of late, I often sigh:

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My growing talk of olden times,
My growing thirst for early news,
My growing apathy to rhymes,

My growing love of easy shoes,
My growing hate of crowds and noise,
My growing fear of taking cold:
All whisper, in the plainest voice,
I'm growing old.

I'm growing fonder of my staff,
I'm growing dimmer in the eyes,
I'm growing fainter in my laugh,
I'm growing deeper in my sighs,
I'm growing careless of my dress,
I'm growing frugal of my gold,
I'm growing wise, I'm growing-yes,
I'm growing old.

I'M GROWING OLD.

I see it in my changing taste,
I see it in my changing hair,
I see it in my growing waist,
I see it in my growing heir;
A thousand signs proclaim the truth,
As plain as truth was ever told,
That, even in my vaunted youth,
I'm growing old.

Ah me! my very laurels breathe
The tale in my reluctant ears,
And every boon the Hours bequeathe
But makes me debtor to the Years.
E'en Flattery's honeyed words declare
The secret she would fain withhold,
And tell me, in "How young you are,"
I'm growing old.

Thanks for the years whose rapid flight
My sombre muse too sadly sings!
Thanks for the gleams of golden light

That tint the darkness of their wings:
The light that beams from out the sky,
Those Heavenly mansions to unfold
Where all are blest, and none may sigh
"I'm growing old!"

JOHN GODFREY SAXE.

DINNA ASK ME.

()! DINNA ask me gin I lo'e

Troth, I daurna tell! Dinna ask me gin I lo'e ye; Ask it o yoursel.

O, dinna look sae sair at me,
For weel ye ken me true;

O, gin ye look sae sair at me,
I daurna look at you.

ye:

When ye gang to yon braw braw town,

And bonnier lassies see,

O, dinna, Jamie, look at them,

Lest should mind na me. ye

For I could never bide the lass

That ye'd lo'e mair than me;

And O, I'm sure my heart wad break,
Gin ye'd prove fause to me!

DUNLOP.

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I COME from haunts of coot and hern; I make a sudden sally,

And sparkle out among the fern,

To bicker down a valley.

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