Let those who want them scramble for their dignities or dollars,
Be millionnaires or magnates, or senators or scholars.

I will puff my mild Havana, and I quietly will query,
Whether, when the strife is over, and the combatants are weary,
Their gains will be more brilliant than its faint expiring flashes,
Or more solid than this panful of its dead and sober ashes.

ARTHUR W. GUNDRY.




TO C.F. BRADFORD.

_ON THE GIFT OF A MEERSCHAUM PIPE._


The pipe came safe, and welcome, too,
As anything must be from you;
A meerschaum pure, 'twould float as light
As she the girls called Amphitrite.
Mixture divine of foam and clay,
From both it stole the best away:
Its foam is such as crowns the glow
Of beakers brimmed by Veuve Clicquot;
Its clay is but congested lymph
Jove chose to make some choicer nymph;
And here combined,--why, this must be
The birth of some enchanted sea,