The following remarkable little poem is a contribution to the San Francisco Times, from the pen of Mrs. H. A. Deming. The reader will notice that each line is a quotation from some one of the standard authors of England and America. This is the result of a year's laborious search among the voluminous writings of thirty-eight leading poets of the past and present. The number of each line refers to the author below:

LIFE.

1—Why all this toil for triumphs of an hour?

2—Life's a short summer, man a flower;

3—By turns we catch the vital breath and die—

4—The cradle and the tomb, alas, so nigh.

5—To be is better far than not to be,

6—Though all man's life may seem a tragedy;

7—But light cares speak when mighty griefs are dumb,

8—The bottom is but shallow when they come.

9—Your fate is but the common fate of all;

10—Unmingled joys, here, to no man befall,

11—Nature to each allots his proper sphere,

12—Fortune makes folly her peculiar care;

13—Custom does not often reason overrule,

14—And throw a cruel sunshine on a fool.

15—Live well, how long or short permit to heaven.

16—They who forgive most, shall be most forgiven.

17—Sin may be clasped so close we cannot see its face—

18—Vile intercourse where virtue has no place;

19—Then keep each passion down, however dear,

20—Thou pendulum, betwixt a smile and tear;

21—Her sensual snares, let faithless pleasures lay,

22—With craft and skill, to ruin and betray;

23—Soar not too high to fall, but stoop to rise,

24—We masters grow of all that we despise.

25—O, then, renounce that impious self-esteem;

26—Riches have, wings, and grandeur is a dream.

27—Think not ambition wise because 'tis brave,

28—The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

29—What is ambition?—'tis a glorious cheat!—

30—Only destructive to the brave and great.

31—What's all the gaudy glitter of a crown?

32—The way to bliss lies not on beds of down.

33—How long we live, not years, but actions, tell;

34—That man lives twice who lives the first life well.

35—Make, then, while yet we may, your God your friend.

36—Whom Christians worship, yet not comprehend.

37—The trust that's given guard; and to yourself be just;

38—For, live we how we can, yet die we must.

1, Young; 2, Dr. Johnson; 3, Pope; 4, Prior; 5, Sewel; 6, Spenser; 7, Daniel; 8, Sir Walter Raleigh; 9, Longfellow; 10, Southwell; 11, Congreve; 12, Churchill; 13, Rochester; 14, Armstrong; 15, Milton; 16, Baily; 17, Trench; 18, Somerville; 19, Thompson; 20, Byron; 21, Smollett; 22, Crabbe; 23, Massinger; 24, Cowley; 25, Beattie; 26, Cowper; 27, Sir Walter Davenant; 28, Grey; 29, Willis; 30, Addison; 31, Dryden; 32, Francis/Quarles; 33, Watkins; 34, Herrick; 35, William Mason; 36, Hill; 37, Dana; 38, Shakspeare.