FROM THREE FLY LEAVES

AH Phyllis! did I only dare To hope that, as the years go by, And you, a maid divinely fair, The cynosure of every eye, Have fixed the wandering minds of men, And found a fare for scores of hearses, You still will open, now and then, My little book of verses; Or did I, bolder yet, aspire To hope that any phrase of mine, Aglow with memory’s cheering fire Will burn within that heart of thine; Although my brow be bare of bays, My coffers not replete with gain, I shall not—what’s the foolish phrase?— Have written quite in vain. J. K. Stephen.