ADVICE FROM A CONTENTED MAN.

IN college 't is thought a most exquisite pleasure

To win but one race after years of denial;

To run and to practise, to train and to measure

One's body for fame, is a wearisome trial.

There 's Jencks of the Senior class: well I remember

When healthy and verdant he came into college;

From the first of October to late in December

His mind was much bent on the gaining of knowledge.

But with the new year he began, quite excited,

To strain at the clubs and to pull at the weights;

The hopes of his chum were forever quite blighted,

For he soon tried to lift all the beds and the grates!

And then in the spring he would pull on the river

And fill all the minds of his friends with alarm.

"Shoot the boat!" cried the boys; said the girls, "Did you ever!"

But still he rowed on, with excitement quite warm.

Three years quickly passed, and one noon Jencks was working,

Intent on a race that came off the next day;

For the prize he had trained, and thought never of shirking,

Until he should win, - so to me did he say.

The race was exciting, - all Harvard was present, -

And pretty, indeed, were the boats as they passed;

Only one thing appeared to my mind quite unpleasant, -

Namely, Jencks - well, in short, at the home-stretch came last!

Now was n't it sad, when you think of his toiling

In sunshine and rain for two years and a half;

And after all that, after wetting and broiling,

To receive but a glance and a pitying laugh?

Ambition, ambition, what labor thou givest

To those who would climb the great hill of thy fame;

Men toil and men sweat, but perhaps all thou leavest

Is a broken-down health and a little-known name.

O Jencks, take advice from gay fortune's reverses,

And abandon your oar as the root of all evil;

Take life as it comes, and, as I do, write verses,

And you 'll soon let athletics depart to the d - l!

L. L. E.