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. Planche._

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, horned 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!

A fig for St. Denis of France--
He's a trumpery fellow to brag on;
A fig for St. George and his lance,
Which spitted a heathenish dragon;
And the saints of the Welshman or Scot
Are a couple of pitiful pipers,
Both of whom may just travel to pot,
Compared with that patron of swipers--
St. Patrick of Ireland, my dear!

He came to the Emerald Isle
On a lump of a paving-stone mounted;
The steamboat he beat by a mile,
Which mighty good sailing was counted.
Says he, "The salt water, I think,
Has made me most bloodily thirsty;
So bring me a flagon of drink
To keep down the mulligrubs, burst ye!
Of drink that is fit for a saint!"

He preached, then, with wonderful force,
The ignorant natives a-teaching;
With a pint he washed down his discourse,
"For," s