BALLADE OF A LIVE MUSE.

'Tis a custom quite honored, I own,

To bow to the muses of yore,

Who live in inanimate stone,

Immortal in verse evermore;

Methinks it a terrible bore

The ink of one's leisure to dip

On damsels who lived long before-

The muse has a smile on her lip.

Terpsichore, dizzy old crone,

Who foots it so sly on the floor,

Has feet which are worn to the bone

And toeses eternally sore.

Calliope - well, if she wore

A ghost of a gown on her hip,

But she don't - so away with this lore-

The muse has a smile on her lip.

Melpomene, too, it is known,

Claims something from rhymthical store,

Which, if she were muscle and bone,

I wouldn't exactly ignore.

It's a fact very much to deplore

She hasn't a dress that can rip-

She's cut from quarry's cold core-

The muse has a smile on her lip.

ENVOY.Collegiate poets, I pour

This draught for your genius to sip;

Away with the Nine, and adore

The muse with a smile on her lip.

[Read at the Inter-Collegiate Press Convention, New York, Dec. 27, 1882.]