use strict; use warnings;
my @foo = ();
while (<DATA>){ chomp;
   if ($. < 4){push @foo, $_}}

print "my first variable is $foo[0]"; 
print "my second variable is $foo[1]";
print "my third variable is $foo[2]";

__DATA__
one
two
a beautiful tree, maybe an oak?
[download]

no need to read after "n lines"

And you can add also a fifth line to rename your variables and that's all: