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Title: A Parody Anthology

Compiler: Carolyn Wells

Release date: August 27, 2014 [eBook #46700]

Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PARODY ANTHOLOGY ***

Transcriber's Note: This cover has been created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

ANTHOLOGIES

BY CAROLYN WELLS

PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

- A VERS DE SOCIÉTÉ ANTHOLOGY

- A WHIMSEY ANTHOLOGY

- A SATIRE ANTHOLOGY

- A PARODY ANTHOLOGY

- A NONSENSE ANTHOLOGY

Each 16mo, Cloth, $1.50 net

A Parody Anthology

BY

CAROLYN WELLS

AUTHOR OF “A NONSENSE ANTHOLOGY"

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1919

Copyright, 1904

BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

Published, September, 1904

TO

MRS. THEODORE ROOSEVELT

NOTE

ACKNOWLEDGMENT is hereby gratefully made to the publishers of the various parodies for permission to include them in this compilation.

The parodies from “Diversions of the Echo Club," by Bayard Taylor, and Mary and Her Lamb, from “New Waggings of Old Tales," by Frank Dempster Sherman, are published by permission of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Company.

By the courtesy of John Lane are included the parodies of Anthony C. Deane, from his volume “New Rhymes for Old;" and those of Owen Seaman, from volumes “In Cap and Bells" and “The Battle of the Bays."

Bed During Exams is from “Cap and Gown," published by Messrs. L. C. Page & Company.

The Golfer's Rubaiyat, by H. C. Boynton, is from “A Book of American Humorous Verse," published by Messrs. Herbert S. Stone & Company.

Staccato to O Le Lupe is from “Last Scenes from Vagabondia," by Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey, published by Messrs. Small, Maynard & Company.

The two poems by Ben King are published by Forbes & Co.

The following are published by Charles Scribner's Sons: Song, from “The Book of Joyous Children," by James Whitcomb Riley; Home Sweet Home, and Imitation, from “Poems" of H. C. Bunner; and Song of a Heart, and Godiva, from “Overheard in a Garden," by Oliver Herford.

CONTENTS

AFTER OMAR KHAYYAM

Page

The Golfer's Rubaiyat

H. W. Boynton

3

An Omar for Ladies

Josephine Daskam Bacon

5

The Modern Rubaiyat

Kate Masterson

7

Lines Written by Request

Owen Seaman

10

The Baby's Omar

Carolyn Wells

12

AFTER CHAUCER

Ye Clerke of ye Wethere

Anonymous

14

AFTER SPENSER

A Portrait

John Keats

15

AFTER SHAKESPEARE

The Bachelor's Soliloquy

Anonymous

17

Poker

Anonymous

18

Toothache

Anonymous

19

A Dreary Song

Shirley Brooks

20

To the Stall-holders at a Fancy Fair

W. S. Gilbert

21

Song

J. W. Riley

22

The Whist Player's Soliloquy

Carolyn Wells

23

AFTER WITHER

Answer to Master Wither's Song

Ben Jonson

25

AFTER HERRICK

Song

Oliver Herford

27

To Julia Under Lock and Key

Owen Seaman

27

AFTER NURSERY RHYMES

An Idyll of Phatte and Leene

Anonymous

29

Nursery Song in Pidgin English

Anonymous

30

The House that Jack Built

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

31

Boston Nursery Rhymes

Rev. Joseph Cook

32

A Song of a Heart

Oliver Herford

33

The Domicile of John

A. Pope

34

Mary and the Lamb

Frank Dempster Sherman

37

AFTER WALLER

The Aesthete to the Rose

Punch

40

AFTER DRYDEN

Three Blessings

Anonymous

41

Oyster Crabs

Carolyn Wells

41

AFTER DR. WATTS

The Voice of the Lobster

Lewis Carroll

42

The Crocodile

Lewis Carroll

43

AFTER GOLDSMITH

When Lovely Woman

Phœbe Cary

44

AFTER BURNS

Gaelic Speech

Anonymous

45

My Foe

Anonymous

46

Rigid Body Sings

J. C. Maxwell

48

AFTER CATHERINE FANSHAWE

Cockney Enigma on the Letter H

Horace Mayhew

49

AFTER WORDSWORTH

On Wordsworth

Anonymous

51

Jacob

Phœbe Cary

51

Fragment

Catherine M. Fanshawe

52

Jane Smith

Rudyard Kipling

54

Only Seven

Henry S. Leigh

55

Lucy Lake

Newton Mackintosh

57

AFTER SIR WALTER SCOTT

Young Lochinvar

Anonymous

58

AFTER COLERIDGE

The Ancient Mariner

Anonymous

61

Striking

Charles S. Calverley

64

AFTER SOUTHEY

The Old Man's Cold

Anonymous

66

Father William

Lewis Carroll

67

Lady Jane

A. T. Quiller-Couch

69

AFTER CAMPBELL

The New Arrival

George W. Cable

72

John Thompson's Daughter

Phœbe Cary

73

AFTER THOMAS MOORE

The Last Cigar

Anonymous

76

'Twas Ever Thus

Anonymous

77

There's a Bower of Bean-Vines

Phœbe Cary

78

Disaster

Charles S. Calverley

79

Sarah's Halls

Judy

80

'Twas Ever Thus

Henry S. Leigh

81

AFTER JANE TAYLOR

The Bat

Lewis Carroll

82

AFTER BARRY CORNWALL

The Tea

Tom Hood, Jr.

83

AFTER BYRON

The Rout of Belgravia

Jon Duan

84

A Grievance

J. K. Stephen

85

AFTER CHARLES WOLFE

The Burial of the Bachelor

Anonymous

88

Not a Sou had He Got

R. Harris Barham

89

The Marriage of Sir John Smith

Phœbe Cary

91

AFTER MRS. HEMANS

The Thyroid Gland

R. M.

93

AFTER KEATS

Ode on a Jar of Pickles

Bayard Taylor

94

AFTER HEINE

Imitation

H. C. Bunner

96

Commonplaces

Rudyard Kipling

97

AFTER HOOD

The Dripping Sheet

Anonymous

98

I Remember, I Remember

Phœbe Cary

101

AFTER ALFRED BUNN

A Yule Tide Parody

Anonymous

103

Self-Evident

J. R. Planché

104

AFTER LORD MACAULAY

The Laureate's Tourney

William Aytoun

105

AFTER EMERSON

Mutton

Anonymous

113

AFTER MARY HOWITT

The Lobster Quadrille

Lewis Carroll

114

AFTER MRS. BROWNING

In the Gloaming

Charles S. Calverley

116

Gwendoline

Bayard Taylor

118

AFTER LONGFELLOW

The Modern Hiawatha

Anonymous

120

Higher

Anonymous

120

Topside Galah

Anonymous

122

Excelsior

Anonymous

124

The Day is Done

Phœbe Cary

126

A Psalm of Life

Phœbe Cary

127

How Often

Ben King

129

Desolation

Thomas Masson

130

The Birds and the Pheasant

Punch

131

AFTER WHITTIER

Hiram Hover

Bayard Taylor

133

AFTER MRS. NORTON

The Horse and his Master

Philip F. Allen

136

The New Version

W. J. Lampton

138

AFTER POE

What Troubled Poe's Raven

John Bennett

139

The Amateur Flute

Anonymous

140

Samuel Brown

Phœbe Cary

142

The Promissory Note

Bayard Taylor

143

The Cannibal Flea

Tom Hood, Jr.

145

Annabel Lee

Stanley Huntley

147

The Bells

Judy

148

The Goblin Goose

Punch

150

AFTER LORD HOUGHTON

Love and Science

Anonymous

153

AFTER TENNYSON

The Bather's Dirge

Tennyson Minor

155

Little Miss Muffet

Anonymous

156

The Musical Pitch

Anonymous

158

To an Importunate Host

Anonymous

158

The Village Choir

Anonymous

159

The Biter Bit

William Aytoun

161

The Laureate

William Aytoun

163

The Lay of the Lovelorn

William Aytoun

165

In Immemoriam

Cuthbert Bede

174

Sir Eggnogg

Bayard Taylor

175

Godiva

Oliver Herford

177

A Laureate's Log

Punch

178

The Recognition

Wm. Sawyer

180

The Higher Pantheism in a Nutshell

A. C. Swinburne

180

Timbuctoo

W. M. Thackeray

183

AFTER TUPPER

Of Friendship

Charles S. Calverley

185

Of Reading

Charles S. Calverley

186

AFTER THACKERAY

The Willow-Tree

W. M. Thackeray

188

AFTER CHARLES DICKENS

Man's Place in Nature

Anonymous

191

AFTER ROBERT BROWNING

Home Truths from Abroad

Anonymous

193

After Browning

Anonymous

194

The Cock and the Bull

Charles S. Calverley

195

A Staccato to O Le Lupe

Bliss Carman

200

By the Sea

Bayard Taylor

203

Angelo Orders his Dinner

Bayard Taylor

205

The Flight of the Bucket

Rudyard Kipling

206

The Jam Pot

Rudyard Kipling

210

Imitation of Robert Browning

J. K. Stephen

210

The Last Ride Together

J. K. Stephen

212

Up the Spout

A. C. Swinburne

215

AFTER WALT WHITMAN

An American, one of the Roughs, a Kosmos

Anonymous

219

Camerados

Bayard Taylor

220

Imitation of Whitman

Judy

221

Imitation of Whitman

J. K. Stephen

224

The Poet and the Woodlouse

A. C. Swinburne

224

AFTER CHARLES KINGSLEY

Three Little Fishers

Frank H. Stauffer

229

The Three Poets

Lilian Whiting

230

AFTER MRS. R. H. STODDARD

The Nettle

Bayard Taylor

231

AFTER BAYARD TAYLOR

Hadramaut

Bayard Taylor

233

AFTER WILLIAM MORRIS

Estunt the Griff

Rudyard Kipling

235

AFTER ALFRED AUSTIN

An Ode

Anthony C. Deane

237

AFTER W. S. GILBERT

Ode to a London Fog

Anonymous

239

President Garfield

Anonymous

240

Propinquity Needed

Charles Battell Loomis

241

AFTER R. H. STODDARD

The Cantelope

Bayard Taylor

243

AFTER A. A. PROCTOR

The Lost Voice

A. H. S.

244

The Lost Ape

J. W. G. W.

245

The Lost Word

C. H. Webb

246

AFTER GEORGE MEREDITH

At the Sign of the Cock

Owen Seaman

248

AFTER D. G. ROSSETTI

A Christmas Wail

Anonymous

252

Ballad

Charles S. Calverley

253

Cimabuella

Bayard Taylor

255

The Poster Girl

Carolyn Wells

257

AFTER JEAN INGELOW

Lovers, and a Reflection

Charles S. Calverley

259

The Shrimp Gatherers

Bayard Taylor

261

AFTER CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

Remember

Judy

263

AFTER LEWIS CARROLL

Waggawocky

Shirley Brooks

264

The Vulture and the Husband-Man

A. C. Hilton

265

AFTER A. C. SWINBURNE

Gillian

Anonymous

268

Atalanta in Camden-town

Lewis Carroll

270

The Manlet

Lewis Carroll

272

If

Mortimer Collins

274

The Maid of the Meerschaum

Rudyard Kipling

275

Quaeritur

Rudyard Kipling

277

A Melton Mowbray Pork-pie

Richard Le Gallienne

278

Foam and Fangs

Walter Parke

278

A Song of Renunciation

Owen Seaman

279

Nephelidia

A. C. Swinburne

282

The Lay of Macaroni

Bayard Taylor

284

AFTER BRET HARTE

The Heathen Pass-ee

A. C. Hilton

286

De Tea Fabula

A. T. Quiller-Couch

289

AFTER AUSTIN DOBSON

The Prodigals

Anonymous

292

AFTER ANDREW LANG

Bo-Peep

Anthony C. Deane

294

AFTER W. E. HENLEY

Imitation

Anthony C. Deane

296

AFTER R. L. STEVENSON

Bed During Exams

Clara Warren Vail

298

AFTER OSCAR WILDE

More Impressions

Oscuro Wildgoose

299

Nursery Rhymes à la Mode

Anonymous

299

A Maudle-In Ballad

Punch

300

Quite the Cheese

H. C. Waring

302

AFTER WILLIAM WATSON

The Three Mice

Anthony C. Deane

304

AFTER KIPLING

Fuzzy Wuzzy Leaves Us

E. P. C.

305

A Ballad

Guy Wetmore Carryl

307

Jack and Jill

Anthony C. Deane

309

The Legend of Realism

Hilda Johnson

313

AFTER STEPHEN PHILLIPS

Little Jack Horner

Anthony C. Deane

315

AFTER FIONA MCLEOD

The Cult of the Celtic

Anthony C. Deane

317

AFTER VARIOUS WRITERS OF VERS DE SOCIÉTÉ

Behold the Deeds

H. C. Bunner

319

Culture in the Slums

W. E. Henley

322

A Ballade of Ballade-Mongers

Augustus Moore

322

AFTER VARIOUS POPULAR SONGS

Beautiful Snow

Anonymous

324

The Newest Thing in Christmas Carols

Anonymous

325

The Tale of Lord Lovell

Anonymous

326

“Songs Without Words"

Robert J. Burdette

327

The Elderly Gentleman

George Canning

328

Turtle Soup

Lewis Carroll

329

Some Day

F. P. Doveton

329

If I Should Die To-night

Ben King

331

A Love Song

Dean Swift

331

Old Fashioned Fun

W. M. Thackeray

333

THEMES WITH VARIATIONS

Home Sweet Home with Variations

H. C. Bunner

334

MODERN VERSIFICATION ON ANCIENT THEMES

Goose à la Mode

E. Cavazza

346

Three Children Sliding

346

Jack and Jill

E. Cavazza

347

Jack and Jill

Charles Battell Loomis

348

The Rejected “National Hymns"

Robert Henry Newell

352

A Theme with Variations

Barry Pain

356

The Poets at Tea

Barry Pain

359

The Poets at a House Party

Carolyn Wells

363

An Old Song by New Singers

A. C. Wilkie

368

INDEX OF TITLES

375

INDEX OF AUTHORS

385

INDEX OF AUTHORS PARODIED

395

INTRODUCTION

PARODY AS A FINE ART

THE fact that parody has been ably defended by many of the world's best minds proves that it is an offensive measure, at least from some viewpoints. But an analysis of the arguments for and against seems to show that parody is a true and legitimate branch of art, whose appreciation depends upon the mental bias of the individual.

To enjoy parody, one must have an intense sense of the humorous and a humorous sense of the intense; and this, of course, presupposes a mental attitude of wide tolerance and liberal judgments.

Parodies are not for those who cannot understand that parody is not necessarily ridicule. Like most other forms of literature, unless the intent of the writer be thoroughly understood and appreciated, the work is of little value to the reader.

The defenders of parody have sometimes endeavored to prove that it has an instructive value, and that it has acted as a reforming influence against mannerisms and other glaring defects. One enthusiastic partisan confidently remarks: “It may gently admonish the best and most established writer, when, from haste, from carelessness, from over-confidence, he is in danger of forfeiting his reputation; it may gently lead the tyro, while there is yet time, from the wrong into the right path." But this ethical air-castle is rudely shattered by facts, for what established writer ever changed his characteristic effects as a result of the parodies upon his works, or what tyro was ever parodied?

It has been said, too, that a good parody makes us love the original work better; but this statement seems to lack satisfactory proof except, perhaps, on the principle that a good parody may lead us to know the original work more thoroughly.

Perhaps the farthest fetched argument of the zealous advocates of the moral virtues of parody is found in Lord Jeffrey's review of the well-known “Rejected Addresses," where he says, “The imitation lets us more completely into the secret of the original author, and enables us to understand far more clearly in what the peculiarity of his manner consists than most of us would ever have done without this assistance." If this be true at all, it is exemplified in very few instances, and is one of the least of the minor reasons for the existence of a parody.

The main intent of the vast majority of parodies is simply to amuse; but to amuse intelligently and cleverly. This aim is quite high enough, and is in no way strengthened or improved by the bolstering up qualities of avowed virtuous influences.

The requirements of the best parody are in a general way simply the requirements of the best literature of any sort; but, specifically, the true parodist requires an exact mental balance, a fine sense of proportion and relative values, good-humor, refinement, and unerring taste. Self-control and self-restraint are also needed; a parodist may go to the very edge, but he must not fall over.

The fact that poor parodies outnumber the good ones in the ratio of about ten to one (which is not an unusual percentage in any branch of literature), is because a wide and generous sense of humor is so rarely found in combination with the somewhat circumscribed quality of good taste. It is, therefore, on account of the abuse of parody, and not the use of it, that a defence of the art has been found necessary.

The parody has the sanction of antiquity, and though its absolute origin is uncertain, and various “Fathers of Parody" have been named, it is safe to assume that it began with the Greeks. The Romans, too, indulged in it, and its continuance has been traced all through the Middle Ages; but these ancient parodies, however acceptable in their time, are of little interest to us now, save as heirlooms. Their wit is coarse, their humor heavy; they are usually caustic and often irreverent.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the art of parody began to improve, and during the nineteenth it rose to a height that demanded recognition from the literary world.

It is interesting to note that the age of English parody was ushered in by such masterpieces as the “Rolliad" and the “Anti-Jacobin," followed by the “Rejected Addresses" and the “Bon Gaultier Ballads." Later came Thackeray, Calverley, Swinburne and Lewis Carroll, also Bayard Taylor, Bret Harte, and Phœbe Cary. More modern still is the work of Rudyard Kipling, Anthony C. Deane, H. C. Bunner, and Owen Seaman.

Though some of these are classed among the minor poets, they are all major parodists and approach their work armed at all points.

The casual critic of parodies, as a rule, divides them into two classes, which, though under various forms of terminology, resolve themselves into parodies of sound and parodies of sense. But there are really three great divisions, which may be called “word-rendering," “form-rendering," and “sense-rendering."

The first, mere word-rendering, is simply an imitation of the original, and depends for its interest entirely upon the substitution of a trivial or commonplace motive for a lofty one, and following as nearly as possible the original words.

Form-rendering is the imitation of the style of an author, preferably an author given to mannerisms or affectation of some sort. The third division, sense-rendering, is by far the most meritorious, and utilizes not only the original writer's diction and style, but follows a train of thought precisely along the lines that he would have pursued from the given premises.

This class of parody is seen at its best in Catherine Fanshawe's “Imitation of Wordsworth," and Calverley's “The Cock and the Bull."

But though parodies of this sort are of more serious worth, the other classes show examples quite as good in their own way.

Lewis Carroll's immortal parody of Southey's “Father William" is merely a burlesque of the word-rendering type, yet it is perfect of its kind and defies adverse criticism.

Miss Cary was a pioneer of parody in America and one of the few women writers who have done clever work of this sort. Miss Cary's parodies are numerous and uniformly first-class examples of their kind. They are collected in a small book, now out of print, and are well worth reading.

Of course, parodies which burlesque the actual words of the original are necessarily parodies of some particular poem, and often not so good an imitation of the style of the author.

More difficult than the parody of a particular poem is the imitation or burlesque of the literary style of an author. To accomplish this, the parodist must be himself a master of style, a student of language, and possessed of a power of mimicry with an instant appreciation of opportunities.

“Diversions of the Echo Club," by Bayard Taylor, are among the best of this class of parodies. Aside from their cleverness they are marked by good taste, fairness, justice, and a true poetic instinct.

Naturally, parodies of literary style are founded on the works of those authors whose individual characteristics invite imitation.

Parody is inevitable where sense is sacrificed to sound, where affectations of speech are evident, or where unwarrantable extravagance of any sort is indulged in. This explains the numerous (and usually worthless) parodies of Walt Whitman.

Swinburne and Browning are often parodied for these (perhaps only apparent) reasons, and the poets of the æsthetic school of course offered especially fine opportunities.

Parodies of Rossetti and his followers are often exceedingly funny, though not at all difficult to write, as the originals both in manner and matter fairly invite absurd incongruities.

Nursery Rhymes seem to find favor with the parodists as themes to work upon. A collection of Mother Goose's Melodies as they have been reset by clever pens, would be both large and interesting.

The masters of parody, however, are as a rule to be found among the master poets. Thackeray turned his genius to imitative account; Swinburne parodied himself as well as his fellow-poets; Rudyard Kipling has done some of the best parodies in the language, and C. S. Calverley's burlesques are classics. The work of these writers may be said to be in the third class; for not only do they preserve the diction and style of the author imitated, but they seem to go beyond that, and, assimilating for the moment his very mentality, caricature not only his expressed thoughts but his abstract cerebrations.

It is easy to understand how Swinburne with his facile fancy and wonderful command of words could be among the best parodists. In his “Heptalogia" are long and careful parodies of no less than seven prominent poets, each of which is a masterpiece, and the parody of Browning is especially good. Browning, of course, has always been a tempting mark for the parodists, but though it is easy to imitate his eccentricities superficially, it is only the greater minds that have parodied his subtler peculiarities. Among the best are Calverley's and Kipling's.

Kipling's parodies, written in his early days, and not often to be found in editions of his collected works, rank with the highest. His parody of Swinburne, while going to the very limit of legitimate imitation, is restrained by a powerful hand, and so kept within convincing bounds. The great fault with most parodies of Swinburne is that exaggeration is given play too freely, and the result is merely a meaningless mass of sound. Clever in a different way is Owen Seaman's parody of Swinburne. Mr. Seaman is one of the most brilliant of modern parodists and his parodies, though long, are perfect in all respects.

Among the most exquisite parodies we have ever read must be counted those of Anthony C. Deane, originally published in various London papers, and Calverley's works are too well known even to require mention.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is often parodied, but rarely worthily. One reason for this lies in the fact that it is not Omar who is parodied at all, but Fitzgerald; consequently, the imitation is merely a form-rendering and more often only lines in the Rubaiyat metre.

Shakespeare, with the exception of one or two of his most hackneyed speeches, is rarely parodied; doubtless owing to the fact that his harmonious work shows no incongruities of matter or manner, and strikes no false notes for the parodists to catch at.

The extent of the domain of parody is vastly larger than is imagined by the average reader, and its already published bibliographies show thousands of collected parodies of varying degrees of merit.

Of all the poets Tennyson has probably been parodied the most; followed closely in this respect by Edgar Allan Poe. After these, Browning, Swinburne, and Walt Whitman; then Moore, Wordsworth, Longfellow, and Thomas Campbell.

Of single poems the one showing the greatest number of parodies is “My Mother," by Ann Taylor; after this those most used for the purpose have been “The Raven," Gray's “Elegy," “The Song of the Shirt," “The May Queen," “Locksley Hall," “The Burial of Sir John Moore," and Kingsley's “Three Fishers."

Parody, then, is a tribute to popularity, and consequently to merit of one sort or another, and in the hands of the initiate may be considered a touch-stone that proves true worth.

A PARODY ANTHOLOGY

AFTER OMAR KHAYYAM

THE GOLFER'S RUBAIYAT

WAKE! for the sun has driven in equal flight

The stars before him from the Tee of Night,

And holed them every one without a Miss,

Swinging at ease his gold-shod Shaft of Light.

Now, the fresh Year reviving old Desires,

The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires,

Pores on this Club and That with anxious eye,

And dreams of Rounds beyond the Rounds of Liars.

Come, choose your Ball, and in the fire of Spring,

Your Red Coat and your wooden Putter fling;

The Club of Time has but a little while

To waggle, and the Club is on the swing.

A Bag of Clubs, a Silver Town or two,

A Flask of Scotch, a Pipe of Shag, and Thou

Beside me caddying in the Wilderness—

Ah, Wilderness were Paradise enow.

Myself, when young, did eagerly frequent

Jamie and His, and heard great argument

Of Grip, and Stance, and Swing; but evermore

Found at the Exit but a Dollar spent.

With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow,

And with mine own hand sought to make it grow;

And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd;

“You hold it in this Way, and you swing it So."

The swinging Brassie strikes; and, having struck,

Moves on; nor all your Wit or future Luck

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Stroke,

Nor from the Card a single Seven pluck.

No hope by Club or Ball to win the Prize;

The batter'd, blacken'd Remade sweetly flies,

Swept cleanly from the Tee; this is the Truth

Nine-tenths is Skill, and all the rest is Lies.

And that inverted Ball they call the High,

By which the Duffer thinks to live or die,

Lift not your hands to It for help, for it

As impotently froths as you or I.

Yon rising Moon that leads us home again,

How oft hereafter will she wax and wane;

How oft hereafter rising, wait for us

At this same Turning—and for One in vain.

And when, like her, my Golfer, I have been

And am no more above the pleasant Green,

And you in your mild Journey pass the Hole

I made in One—ah, pay my Forfeit then!

H. W. Boynton.

AN OMAR FOR LADIES[A]

ONE for her Club and her own Latch-key fights,

Another wastes in Study her good Nights.

Ah, take the Clothes and let the Culture go,

Nor heed the grumble of the Women's Rights!

Look at the Shop-girl all about us—“Lo,

The Wages of a month," she says, “I blow

Into a Hat, and when my hair is waved,

Doubtless my Friend will take me to the Show."

And she who saved her coin for Flannels red,

And she who caught Pneumonia instead,

Will both be Underground in Fifty Years,

And Prudence pays no Premium to the dead.

Th' exclusive Style you set your heart upon

Gets to the Bargain counters—and anon

Like monograms on a Saleslady's tie

Cheers but a moment—soon for you 'tis gone.

Think, on the sad Four Hundred's gilded halls,

Whose endless Leisure ev'n themselves appalls,

How Ping-pong raged so high—then faded out

To those far Suburbs that still chase its Balls.

They say Sixth Avenue and the Bowery keep

The dernier cri that once was far from cheap;

Green Veils, one season chic—Department stores

Mark down in vain—no profit shall they reap.

I sometimes think that never lasts so long

The Style as when it starts a bit too strong;

That all the Pompadours the parterre boasts

Some Chorus-girl began, with Dance and Song.

And this Revival of the Chignon low

That fills the most of us with helpless Woe,

Ah, criticise it Softly! for who knows

What long-necked Peeress had to wear it so!

Ah, my beloved, try each Style you meet;

To-day brooks no loose ends, you must be neat.

To-morrow! why, to-morrow you may be

Wearing it down your back like Marguerite!

For some we once admired, the Very Best

That ever a French hand-boned Corset prest,

Wore what they used to call Prunella Boots,

And put on Nightcaps ere they went to rest.

And we that now make fun of Waterfalls

They wore, and whom their Crinoline appalls,

Ourselves shall from old dusty Fashion plates

Assist our Children in their Costume balls.

Ah, make the most of what we yet may wear,

Before we grow so old that we don't care!

Before we have our Hats made all alike,

Sans Plumes, sans Wings, sans Chiffon, and—sans Hair!

Josephine Daskam Bacon.

FOOTNOTE:

[A] Copyright, 1903, by Harper & Brothers.

THE MODERN RUBAIYAT

(Dobley's Version)

HARK! for the message cometh from the King!

Winter, thy doom is spoke; thy dirges ring,

Thy time is o'er—and through the Palace door

Enter the Princess! Hail the new-crowned Spring!

Comes she all rose-crowned, glowing with the Joy

Of Laughter and of Cupid, the God-Boy;

Buds bursting on the bough in welcoming

To Her we Love, whose loving will not cloy!

List! from the organ rippling in the Street

Come sounds rejoicing, glad Her reign to greet.

The Shad is smiling in the Market Place

And eke the Little Neck! Ah—Life is Sweet!

Come, let us lilt a Merry Little Song

And in an Automobile glide along

Into the glory of the Year's new Birth.

Hasten! Oh, haste! For this is Spring, I Think!

Come where the Bonnets bloom within the Grove

And let us pluck them for the One we Love;

Violets and Things and chiffon-nested Birds.

Tell me—didst ever see a Glass-Eyed Dove?

Think you how many Springs will go and come

When We are Dead Ones—and the busy Hum

Of life will never reach us—Nothing Done

And Nothing Doing in the Silence Glum!

Listen! the cable car's Gay Gong has rang,

The Elevated on its perch, A-clang

Like to a District Messenger astir.

Thought you, it was a Nightingale that sang?

Ah! my Beloved, when it's Really Spring

We know it by the Buds a-blossoming,

Signals from earth to sky—Tremendous Sounds

That might to Some mean any Ancient Thing!

Then let us to the Caravan at Once,

The Sawdust where the Peanut haunts

The air with strange sweet Odors

And the Elephant does Wild and Woolly Stunts!

Asparagus is glowing on the Stall,

The Spring lamb cavorts on the Menu tall;

Strawberries ripe—a Dollar for the Box:

Wouldn't it jar You somehow, After all?

A Book of Coon Songs underneath the Bough,

A Jug of Wine, a Dozen Buns, and Thou

Beside me singing rag-time? I don't know?

I wonder would a dozen be enow?

I sent my soul afling through Joy and Pain

For Information that the Winds might deign.

Softly the breezes pitched it, Russie-curved,

And whispered slowly—sadly—“Guess Again."

Sometimes I think the Glories that they Sing

Are like the grape-vine the Fox tried to cling;

But take To-day—and make the Most of It,

I think it's Just Too Sweet for anything!

What of To-morrow—say you? Oh, my Friend—

To-morrow's Not been Touched. It's yet to Spend.

I often wonder if we should expire

If we could but Collect the Gold we Lend!

Ah, Love! could Thou and I Creation run,

How Different our Scheme! The Summer's sun

Would see another Springtime blossoming,

Another Summer's Rose to Follow On!

And Leaning from the Sky a Little Star

Would Tell Us from the Canopy afar

What now we Grope for in the Dinky-dink,

And wonder blindly, vaguely, What we Are!

And when Alone you dream your fancies ripe,

Thyself all Hasheesh-fed—My Prototype!

Smoke Up—and when you gather with the Group

Where I made One—Turn Down an Empty Pipe!

Kate Masterson

LINES WRITTEN (“BY REQUEST")

FOR A DINNER OF THE OMAR

KHAYYAM CLUB

MASTER, in memory of that Verse of Thine,

And of Thy rather pretty taste in Wine,

We gather at this jaded Century's end,

Our Cheeks, if so we may, to incarnadine.

Thou hast the kind of Halo which outstays

Most other Genii's. Though a Laureate's bays

Should slowly crumple up, Thou livest on,

Having survived a certain Paraphrase.

The Lion and the Alligator squat

In Dervish Courts—the Weather being hot—

Under Umbrellas. Where is Mahmud now?

Plucked by the Kitchener and gone to Pot!

Not so with thee; but in Thy place of Rest,

Where East is East and never can be West,

Thou art the enduring Theme of dining Bards;

O make allowances; they do their Best.

Our Health—Thy Prophet's health—is but so-so;

Much marred by men of Abstinence who know

Of Thee and all Thy loving Tavern-lore

Nothing, nor care for it one paltry Blow.

Yea, we ourselves, who beam around Thy Bowl,

Somewhat to dull Convention bow the Soul,

We sit in sable Trouserings and Boots,

Nor do the Vine-leaves deck a single Poll.

How could they bloom in uncongenial air?

Nor, though they bloomed profusely, should we wear

Upon our Heads—so tight is Habit's hold—

Aught else beside our own unaided Hair.

The Epoch curbs our Fancy. What is more

To BE, in any case, is now a Bore.

Even in Humor there is nothing new;

There is no Joke that was not made before.

But Thou! with what a fresh and poignant sting

Thy Muse remarked that Time was on the Wing!

Ah, Golden Age, when Virgin was the Soil,

And Decadence was deemed a newish Thing.

These picturesque departures now are stale;

The noblest Vices have their vogue and fail;

Through some inherent Taint or lack of Nerve

We cease to sin upon a generous scale.

This hour, though drinking at my Host's expense,

I fear to use a fine Incontinence,

For terror of the Law and him that waits

Outside, the unknown X, to hale us hence.

For, should he make of us an ill Report

As pipkins of the more loquacious Sort,

We might be lodged, the Lord alone knows where,

Save Peace were purchased with a pewter Quart.

And yet, O Lover of the purple Vine,

Haply Thy Ghost is watching how we dine;

Ah, let the Whither go; we'll take our chance

Of fourteen days with option of a Fine.

Master, if we, Thy Vessels, staunch and stout,

Should stagger, half-seas-over, blind with Doubt,

In sound of that dread moaning of the Bar,

Be near, be very near, to bail us out!

Owen Seaman.

THE BABY'S OMAR

OMAR'S the fad! Well then, let us indite

The shape of verse old Omar used to write;

And Juveniles are up. So we opine

A Baby's Omar would be out of sight!

Methinks the stunt is easy. Stilted style,

A misplaced Capital once in a while,—

Other verse writers do it like a shot;

And can't I do it too? Well, I should Smile!

But how I ramble on. I must dismiss

Dull Sloth, and set to Work at once, I wis;

I sometimes think there's nothing quite so hard

As a Beginning. Say we start like this:

Indeed, indeed my apron oft before

I tore, but was I naughty when I tore?

And then, and then came Ma, and thread in hand

Repaired the rent in my small pinafore.

A Penny Trumpet underneath the Bough,

A Drum that's big enough to make a Row;

A Toy Fire-Engine, and a squeaking Doll,

Oh, Life were Pandemonium enow.

Come, fill the Cup, then quickly on the floor

Your portion of the Porridge gaily pour.

The Nurse will Spank you, and she'll be discharged,—

Ah, but of Nurses there be Plenty more.

Yes, I can do it! Now, if but my Purse

Some kindly Editor will reimburse,

I'll write a Baby's Omar; for I'm sure

These Sample Stanzas here are not so worse.

Carolyn Wells.

AFTER CHAUCER

YE CLERKE OF YE WETHERE

A  CLERKE there was, a puissant wight was hee,

Who of ye wethere hadde ye maisterie;

Alway it was his mirthe and his solace—

To put eche seson's wethere oute of place.

Whanne that Aprille shoures wer our desyre,

He gad us Julye sonnes as hotte as fyre;

But sith ye summere togges we donned agayne,

Eftsoons ye wethere chaunged to cold and rayne.

Wo was that pilgrimme who fared forth a-foote,

Without ane gyngham that him list uppe-putte;

And gif no mackyntosches eke had hee,

A parlous state that wight befelle—pardie!

We wist not gif it nexte ben colde or hotte,

Cogswounds! ye barde a grewsome colde hath gotte!

Certes, that clerke's ane mightie man withalle,

Let non don him offence, lest ille befalle.

Anonymous.

AFTER SPENSER

A PORTRAIT

HE is to weet a melancholy carle:

Thin in the waist, with bushy head of hair,

As hath the seeded thistle, when a parle

It holds with Zephyr, ere it sendeth fair

Its light balloons into the summer air;

Thereto his beard had not begun to bloom.

No brush had touched his cheek, or razor sheer;

No care had touched his cheek with mortal doom,

But new he was and bright, as scarf from Persian loom.

Ne carèd he for wine, or half and half;

Ne carèd he for fish, or flesh, or fowl;

And sauces held he worthless as the chaff;

He 'sdeigned the swine-head at the wassail-bowl:

Ne with lewd ribbalds sat he cheek by jowl;

Ne with sly lemans in the scorner's chair;

But after water-brooks this pilgrim's soul

Panted and all his food was woodland air;

Though he would oft-times feast on gilliflowers rare

The slang of cities in no wise he knew,

Tipping the wink to him was heathen Greek;

He sipped no “olden Tom," or “ruin blue,"

Or Nantz, or cherry-brandy, drunk full meek

By many a damsel brave and rouge of cheek;

Nor did he know each aged watchman's beat,

Nor in obscurèd purlieus would he seek

For curlèd Jewesses, with ankles neat,

Who, as they walk abroad, make tinkling with their feet.

John Keats.

AFTER SHAKESPEARE

THE BACHELOR'S SOLILOQUY

TO wed, or not to wed? That is the question

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The pangs and arrows of outrageous love

Or to take arms against the powerful flame

And by oppressing quench it.

To wed—to marry—

And by a marriage say we end

The heartache and the thousand painful shocks

Love makes us heir to—'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished! to wed—to marry—

Perchance a scold! aye, there's the rub!

For in that wedded life what ills may come

When we have shuffled off our single state

Must give us serious pause. There's the respect

That makes us Bachelors a numerous race.

For who would bear the dull unsocial hours

Spent by unmarried men, cheered by no smile

To sit like hermit at a lonely board

In silence? Who would bear the cruel gibes

With which the Bachelor is daily teased

When he himself might end such heart-felt griefs

By wedding some fair maid? Oh, who would live

Yawning and staring sadly in the fire

Till celibacy becomes a weary life

But that the dread of something after wed-lock

(That undiscovered state from whose strong chains

No captive can get free) puzzles the will

And makes us rather choose those ills we have

Than fly to others which a wife may bring.

Thus caution doth make Bachelors of us all,

And thus our natural taste for matrimony

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.

And love adventures of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents turn away

And lose the name of Wedlock.

Anonymous.

POKER

TO draw, or not to draw,—that is the question:—

Whether 'tis safer in the player to take

The awful risk of skinning for a straight,

Or, standing pat, to raise 'em all the limit

And thus, by bluffing, get in. To draw,—to skin;

No more—and by that skin to get a full,

Or two pairs, or the fattest bouncing kings

That luck is heir to—'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To draw—to skin;

To skin! perchance to burst—ay, there's the rub!

For in the draw of three what cards may come,

When we have shuffled off th' uncertain pack,

Must give us pause. There's the respect

That makes calamity of a bobtail flush;

For who would bear the overwhelming blind,

The reckless straddle, the wait on the edge,

The insolence of pat hands and the lifts

That patient merit of the bluffer takes,

When he himself might be much better off

By simply passing? Who would trays uphold,

And go out on a small progressive raise,

But that the dread of something after call—

The undiscovered ace-full, to whose strength

Such hands must bow, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather keep the chips we have

Than be curious about the hands we know not of.

Thus bluffing does make cowards of us all:

And thus the native hue of a four-heart flush

Is sicklied with some dark and cussed club,

And speculators in a jack-pot's wealth

With this regard their interest turn away

And lose the right to open.

Anonymous.

TOOTHACHE

TO have it out or not. That is the question—

Whether 'tis better for the jaws to suffer

The pangs and torments of an aching tooth

Or to take steel against a host of troubles,

And, by extracting them, end them? To pull—to tug!—

No more: and by a tug to say we end

The toothache and a thousand natural ills

The jaw is heir to. 'Tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished! To pull—to tug!—

To tug—perchance to break! Ay, there's the rub,

For in that wrench what agonies may come

When we have half dislodged the stubborn foe,

Must give us pause. There's the respect

That makes an aching tooth of so long life.

For who would bear the whips and stings of pain,

The old wife's nostrum, dentist's contumely;

The pangs of hope deferred, kind sleep's delay;

The insolence of pity, and the spurns,

That patient sickness of the healthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

For one poor shilling? Who would fardels bear,

To groan and sink beneath a load of pain?—

But that the dread of something lodged within

The linen-twisted forceps, from whose pangs

No jaw at ease returns, puzzles the will,

And makes it rather bear the ills it has

Than fly to others that it knows not of.

Thus dentists do make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of fear;

And many a one, whose courage seeks the door,

With this regard his footsteps turns away,

Scared at the name of dentist.

Anonymous.

A DREARY SONG

WELL, don't cry, my little tiny boy,

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain

Amuse yourself, and break some toy,

For the rain it raineth every day.

Alas, for the grass on Papa's estate,

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,

He'll have to buy hay at an awful rate,

For the rain it raineth every day.

Mamma, she can't go out for a drive,

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,

How cross she gets about four or five,

For the rain it raineth every day.

If I were you I'd be off to bed,

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,

Or the damp will give you a cold in the head,

For the rain it raineth every day.

A great while ago this song was done,

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,

And I, for one, cannot see it's fun,

But the Dyces and the Colliers can—they say.

Shirley Brooks.

TO THE STALL-HOLDERS AT A

FANCY FAIR

WITH pretty speech accost both old and young,

And speak it trippingly upon the tongue;

But if you mouth it with a hoyden laugh,

With clumsy ogling and uncomely chaff—

As I have oft seen done at fancy fairs,

I had as lief a huckster sold my wares,

Avoid all so-called beautifying, dear.

Oh! it offends me to the soul to hear

The things that men among themselves will say

Of some soi-disant “beauty of the day,"

Whose face, when she with cosmetics has cloyed it,

Out-Rachels Rachel! pray you, girls, avoid it.

Neither be you too tame—but, ere you go,

Provide yourselves with sprigs of mistletoe;

Offer them coyly to the Roman herd—

But don't you suit “the action to the word,"

For in that very torrent of your passion

Remember modesty is still in fashion.

Oh, there be ladies whom I've seen hold stalls—

Ladies of rank, my dear—to whom befalls

Neither the accent nor the gait of ladies;

So clumsily made up with Bloom of Cadiz,

Powder-rouge—lip-salve—that I've fancied then

They were the work of Nature's journeymen.

W. S. Gilbert.

SONG

WITH a hey! and a hi! and a hey-ho rhyme!

Oh, the shepherd lad

He is ne'er so glad

As when he pipes, in the blossom-time,

So rare!

While Kate picks by, yet looks not there.

So rare! so rare!

With a hey! and a hi! and a ho!

The grasses curdle where the daisies blow!

With a hey! and a hi! and a hey-ho vow!

Then he sips her face

At the sweetest place—

And ho! how white is the hawthorn now!—

So rare!—

And the daisied world rocks round them there.

So rare! so rare!

With a hey! and a hi! and a ho!

The grasses curdle where the daisies blow!

James Whitcomb Riley.

THE WHIST-PLAYER'S SOLILOQUY

TO trump, or not to trump,—that is the question:

Whether 't is better in this case to notice

The leads and signals of outraged opponents,

Or to force trumps against a suit of diamonds,

And by opposing end them? To trump,—to take,—

No more; and by that trick to win the lead

And after that, return my partner's spades

For which he signalled,—'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To trump—to take,—

To take! perchance to win! Ay, there's the rub;

For if we win this game, what hands may come

When we have shuffled up these cards again.

Play to the score? ah! yes, there's the defect

That makes this Duplicate Whist so much like work.

For who would heed the theories of Hoyle,

The laws of Pole, the books of Cavendish,

The Short-Suit system, Leads American,

The Eleven Rule Finesse, The Fourth-best play,

The Influence of signals on The Ruff,

When he himself this doubtful trick might take

With a small two-spot? Who would hesitate,

But that the dread of something afterwards,

An undiscovered discard or forced lead

When playing the return, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather lose the tricks we have

To win the others that we know not of?

Thus Duplicate Whist makes cowards of us all;

And thus the native hue of Bumblepuppy

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.

And good whist-players of great skill and judgment,

With this regard their formulas defy,

And lose the game by ruffing.

Carolyn Wells.

AFTER WITHER

ANSWER TO MASTER WITHERS SONG,

“SHALL I, WASTING IN DESPAIR?"

SHALL I, mine affections slack,

'Cause I see a woman's black?

Or myself, with care cast down,

'Cause I see a woman brown?

Be she blacker than the night,

Or the blackest jet in sight!

If she be not so to me,

What care I how black she be?

Shall my foolish heart be burst,

'Cause I see a woman's curst?

Or a thwarting hoggish nature

Joinèd in as bad a feature?

Be she curst or fiercer than

Brutish beast, or savage man!

If she be not so to me,

What care I how curst she be?

Shall a woman's vices make

Me her vices quite forsake?

Or her faults to me made known,

Make me think that I have none?

Be she of the most accurst,

And deserve the name of worst!

If she be not so to me,

What care I how bad she be?

'Cause her fortunes seem too low,

Shall I therefore let her go?

He that bears an humble mind

And with riches can be kind,

Think how kind a heart he'd have,

If he were some servile slave!

And if that same mind I see

What care I how poor she be?

Poor, or bad, or curst, or black,

I will ne'er the more be slack!

If she hate me (then believe!)

She shall die ere I will grieve!

If she like me when I woo

I can like and love her too!

If that she be fit for me!

What care I what others be?

Ben Jonson.

AFTER HERRICK

SONG

GATHER Kittens while you may,

Time brings only Sorrow;

And the Kittens of To-day

Will be Old Cats To-morrow.

Oliver Herford.

TO JULIA UNDER LOCK AND KEY

(A form of betrothal gift in America is an anklet secured by a padlock, of which the other party keeps the key)

WHEN like a bud my Julia blows

In lattice-work of silken hose,

Pleasant I deem it is to note

How, 'neath the nimble petticoat,

Above her fairy shoe is set

The circumvolving zonulet.

And soothly for the lover's ear

A perfect bliss it is to hear

About her limb so lithe and lank

My Julia's ankle-bangle clank.

Not rudely tight, for 'twere a sin

To corrugate her dainty skin;

Nor yet so large that it might fare

Over her foot at unaware;

But fashioned nicely with a view

To let her airy stocking through:

So as, when Julia goes to bed,

Of all her gear disburdenèd,

This ring at least she shall not doff

Because she cannot take it off.

And since thereof I hold the key,

She may not taste of liberty,

Not though she suffer from the gout,

Unless I choose to let her out.

Owen Seaman.

AFTER NURSERY RHYMES

AN IDYLL OF PHATTE AND LEENE

THE hale John Sprat—oft called for shortness, Jack—

Had married—had, in fact, a wife—and she

Did worship him with wifely reverence.

He, who had loved her when she was a girl,

Compass'd her, too, with sweet observances;

E'en at the dinner table did it shine.

For he—liking no fat himself—he never did,

With jealous care piled up her plate with lean,

Not knowing that all lean was hateful to her.

And day by day she thought to tell him o 't,

And watched the fat go out with envious eye,

But could not speak for bashful delicacy.

At last it chanced that on a winter day,

The beef—a prize joint!—little was but fat;

So fat, that John had all his work cut out,

To snip out lean fragments for his wife,

Leaving, in very sooth, none for himself;

Which seeing, she spoke courage to her soul,

Took up her fork, and, pointing to the joint

Where 'twas the fattest, piteously she said;

“Oh, husband! full of love and tenderness!

What is the cause that you so jealously

Pick out the lean for me. I like it not!

Nay, loathe it—'tis on the fat that I would feast;

O me, I fear you do not like my taste!"

Then he, dropping his horny-handled carving knife,

Sprinkling therewith the gravy o'er her gown,

Answer'd, amazed: “What! you like fat, my wife!

And never told me. Oh, this is not kind!

Think what your reticence has wrought for us;

How all the fat sent down unto the maid—

Who likes not fat—for such maids never do—

Has been put in the waste-tub, sold for grease,

And pocketed as servant's perquisite!

Oh, wife! this news is good; for since, perforce,

A joint must be not fat nor lean, but both;

Our different tastes will serve our purpose well;

For, while you eat the fat—the lean to me

Falls as my cherished portion. Lo! 'tis good!"

So henceforth—he that tells the tale relates—

In John Sprat's household waste was quite unknown;

For he the lean did eat, and she the fat,

And thus the dinner-platter was all cleared.

Anonymous.

NURSERY SONG IN PIDGIN ENGLISH

SINGEE a songee sick a pence,

Pockee muchee lye;

Dozen two time blackee bird

Cookee in e pie.

When him cutee topside

Birdee bobbery sing;

Himee tinkee nicey dish

Setee foree King!

Kingee in a talkee loom

Countee muchee money;

Queeny in e kitchee,

Chew-chee breadee honey.

Servant galo shakee,

Hangee washee clothes;

Cho-chop comee blackie bird,

Nipee off her nose!

Anonymous.

THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT

AND this reft house is that the which he built,

Lamented Jack! and here his malt he piled.

Cautious in vain! these rats that squeak so wild,

Squeak not unconscious of their father's guilt.

Did he not see her gleaming through the glade!

Belike 'twas she, the maiden all forlorn.

What though she milked no cow with crumpled horn,

Yet, aye she haunts the dale where erst she strayed:

And aye before her stalks her amorous knight!

Still on his thighs their wonted brogues are worn,

And through those brogues, still tattered and betorn,

His hindward charms gleam an unearthly white.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

BOSTON NURSERY RHYMES

RHYME FOR A GEOLOGICAL BABY

TRILOBITE, Graptolite, Nautilus pie;

Seas were calcareous, oceans were dry.

Eocene, miocene, pliocene Tuff,

Lias and Trias and that is enough.

RHYME FOR ASTRONOMICAL BABY

BYE Baby Bunting,

Father's gone star-hunting;

Mother's at the telescope

Casting baby's horoscope.

Bye Baby Buntoid,

Father's found an asteroid;

Mother takes by calculation

The angle of its inclination.

RHYME FOR BOTANICAL BABY

LITTLE bo-peepals

Has lost her sepals,

And can't tell where to find them;

In the involucre

By hook or by crook or

She'll make up her mind not to mind them.

RHYME FOR A CHEMICAL BABY

OH, sing a song of phosphates,

Fibrine in a line,

Four-and-twenty follicles

In the van of time.

When the phosphorescence

Evoluted brain,

Superstition ended,

Men began to reign.

Rev. Joseph Cook.

A SONG OF A HEART

UPON a time I had a Heart,

And it was bright and gay;

And I gave it to a Lady fair

To have and keep alway.

She soothed it and she smoothed it

And she stabbed it till it bled;

She brightened it and lightened it

And she weighed it down with lead.

She flattered it and battered it

And she filled it full of gall;

Yet had I Twenty Hundred Hearts,

Still should she have them all.

Oliver Herford.

THE DOMICILE OF JOHN

BEHOLD the mansion reared by Daedal Jack!

See the malt stored in many a plethoric sack,

In the proud cirque of Ivan's Bivouac!

Mark how the rat's felonious fangs invade

The golden stores in John's pavilion laid!

Anon, with velvet foot and Tarquin strides,

Subtle Grimalkin to his quarry glides;

Grimalkin grim, that slew the fierce rodent,

Whose tooth insidious Johann's sackcloth rent!

Lo! Now the deep-mouthed canine foe's assault!

That vexed the avenger of the stolen malt,

Stored in the hallowed precincts of that hall,

That rose complete at Jack's creative call.

Here stalks the impetuous cow with the crumpled horn,

Whereon the exacerbating hound was torn

Who bayed the feline slaughter-beast that slew

The rat predaceous, whose keen fangs ran through

The textile fibres that involved the grain

That lay in Hans' inviolate domain.

Here walks forlorn the damsel crowned with rue,

Lactiferous spoils from vaccine dugs who drew

Of that corniculate beast whose tortuous horn

Tossed to the clouds, in fierce vindictive scorn,

The baying hound whose braggart bark and stir

Arched the lithe spine and reared the indignant fur

Of puss, that, with verminicidal claw,

Struck the weird rat, in whose insatiate maw

Lay reeking malt, that erst in Juan's courts we saw.

Robed in senescent garb, that seems, in sooth,

Too long a prey to Chronos' iron tooth,

Behold the man whose amorous lips incline

Full with young Eros' osculative sign,

To the lorn maiden whose lactalbic hands

Drew albulactic wealth from lacteal glands

Of that immortal bovine, by whose horn

Distort, to realms ethereal was borne

The beast catulean, vexer of that sly

Ulysses quadrupedal, who made die

The old mordaceous rat that dared devour

Antecedaneous ale in John's domestic bower.

Lo! Here, with hirsute honors doffed, succinct

Of saponaceous locks, the priest who linked

In Hymen's golden bands the man unthrift

Whose means exiguous stared from many a rift,

E'en as he kissed the virgin all forlorn

Who milked the cow with implicated horn,

Who in fierce wrath the canine torturer skied,

That dared to vex the insidious muricide,

Who let auroral effluence through the pelt

Of that sly rat that robbed the palace that Jack built.

The loud cantankerous Shanghai comes at last,

Whose shouts aroused the shorn ecclesiast,

Who sealed the vows of Hymen's sacrament

To him who, robed in garments indigent,

Exosculates the damsel lachrymose,

The emulgator of the horned brute morose

That on gyrated horn, to heaven's high vault

Hurled up, with many a tortuous somersault,

The low bone-cruncher, whose hot wrath pursued

The scratching sneak, that waged eternal feud

With long-tailed burglar, who his lips would smack

On farinaceous wealth, that filled the halls of Jack.

Vast limbed and broad the farmer comes at length,

Whose cereal care supplied the vital strength

Of chanticleer, whose matutinal cry

Roused the quiescent form and ope'd the eye

Of razor-loving cleric, who in bands

Connubial linked the intermixed hands

Of him, whose rent apparel gaped apart,

And the lorn maiden with lugubrious heart,

Her who extraught the exuberant lactic flow

Of nutriment from that cornigerent cow,

Eumenidal executor of fate,

That to sidereal altitudes elate

Cerberus, who erst with fang lethiferous

Left lacerate Grimalkin latebrose—

That killed the rat

That ate the malt

That lay in the house that Jack built.

A. Pope.

MARY AND THE LAMB

MARY,—what melodies mingle

To murmur her musical name!

It makes all one's finger-tips tingle

Like fagots, the food of the flame;

About her an ancient tradition

A romance delightfully deep

Has woven in juxtaposition

With one little sheep,—

One dear little lamb that would follow

Her footsteps, unwearily fain.

Down dale, over hill, over hollow,

To school and to hamlet again;

A gentle companion, whose beauty

Consisted in snow-driven fleece,

And whose most imperative duty

Was keeping the peace.

His eyes were as beads made of glassware,

His lips were coquettishly curled,

His capers made many a lass swear

His caper-sauce baffled the world;

His tail had a wag when it relished

A sip of the milk in the pail,—

And this fact has largely embellished

The wag of this tale.

One calm summer day when the sun was

A great golden globe in the sky,

One mild summer morn when the fun was

Unspeakably clear in his eye,

He tagged after exquisite Mary,

And over the threshold of school

He tripped in a temper contrary,

And splintered the rule.

A great consternation was kindled

Among all the scholars, and some

Confessed their affection had dwindled

For lamby, and looked rather glum;

But Mary's schoolmistress quick beckoned

The children away from the jam,

And said, sotto voce, she reckoned

That Mame loved the lamb.

Then all up the spine of the rafter

There ran a most risible shock,

And sorrow was sweetened with laughter

At this little lamb of the flock;

And out spoke the schoolmistress Yankee,

With rather a New Hampshire whine,

“Dear pupils, sing Moody and Sankey,

Hymn 'Ninety and Nine.'"

Now after this music had finished,

And silence again was restored,

The ardor of lamby diminished,

His quips for a moment were floored

Then cried he, “Bah-ed children, you blundered

When singing that psalmistry, quite.

I'm labelled by Mary, 'Old Hundred,'

And I'm labelled right."

Then vanished the lambkin in glory,

A halo of books round his head:

What furthermore happened the story,

Alackaday! cannot be said.

And Mary, the musical maid, is

To-day but a shadow in time;

Her epitaph, too, I'm afraid is

Writ only in rhyme.

She's sung by the cook at her ladle

That stirs up the capering sauce;

She's sung by the nurse at the cradle

When ba-ba is restless and cross;

And lamby, whose virtues were legion,

Dwells ever in songs that we sing,

He makes a nice dish in this region

To eat in the spring!

Frank Dempster Sherman.

AFTER WALLER

THE AESTHETE TO THE ROSE

Go, flaunting Rose!

Tell her that wastes her love on thee,

That she nought knows

Of the New Cult, Intensity,

If sweet and fair to her you be.

Tell her that's young,

Or who in health and bloom takes pride,

That bards have sung

Of a new youth—at whose sad side

Sickness and pallor aye abide.

Small is the worth

Of Beauty in crude charms attired.

She must shun mirth,

Have suffered, fruitlessly desired,

And wear no flush by hope inspired.

Then die, that she

May learn that Death is passing fair;

May read in thee

How little of Art's praise they share,

Who are not sallow, sick, and spare!

Punch.

AFTER DRYDEN

THREE BLESSINGS

THREE brightest blessings of this thirsty race,

(Whence sprung and when I don't propose to trace);

Pale brandy, potent spirit of the night,

Brisk soda, welcome when the morn is bright;

To make the third, combine the other two,

The force of nature can no further go.

Anonymous.

OYSTER-CRABS

THREE viands in three different courses served,

Received the commendation they deserved.

The first in succulence all else surpassed;

The next in flavor; and in both, the last.

For Nature's forces could no further go;

To make the third, she joined the other two.

Carolyn Wells.

AFTER DR. WATTS

THE VOICE OF THE LOBSTER

“'TIS the voice of the Lobster: I heard him declare

'You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.'

As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose

Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.

When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark,

And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark:

But, when the tide rises and sharks are around,

His voice has a timid and tremulous sound.

“I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye,

How the Owl and the Panther were sharing a pie;

The Panther took pie-crust, and gravy, and meat,

While the Owl had the dish as its share of the treat.

When the pie was all finished, the Owl, as a boon,

Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon;

While the Panther received knife and fork with a growl,

And concluded the banquet by ——"

Lewis Carroll.

THE CROCODILE

HOW doth the little crocodile

Improve his shining tail,

And pour the waters of the Nile

On every golden scale!

How cheerfully he seems to grin,

How neatly spreads his claws,

And welcomes little fishes in,

With gently smiling jaws!

Lewis Carroll.

AFTER GOLDSMITH

WHEN LOVELY WOMAN

WHEN lovely woman wants a favor,

And finds, too late, that man won't bend,

What earthly circumstance can save her

From disappointment in the end?

The only way to bring him over,

The last experiment to try,

Whether a husband or a lover,

If he have feeling is—to cry.

Phœbe Cary.

AFTER BURNS

GAELIC SPEECH; OR, “AULD LANG

SYNE" DONE UP IN TARTAN

SHOULD Gaelic speech be e'er forgot,

And never brocht to min',

For she'll be spoke in Paradise

In the days of auld lang syne.

When Eve, all fresh in beauty's charms,

First met fond Adam's view,

The first word that he'll spoke till her

Was, “cumar achum dhu."

And Adam in his garden fair,

Whene'er the day did close,

The dish that he'll to supper teuk

Was always Athole brose.

When Adam from his leafy bower

Cam oot at broke o' day,

He'll always for his morning teuk

A quaich o' usquebae.

An' when wi' Eve he'll had a crack,

He'll teuk his sneeshin' horn,

An' on the tap ye'll well mitch mark

A pony praw Cairngorm.

The sneeshin' mull is fine, my friens—

The sneeshin' mull is gran';

We'll teukta hearty sneesh, my friens,

And pass frae han' to han'.

When man first fan the want o' claes,

The wind an' cauld to fleg.

He twisted roon' about his waist

The tartan philabeg.

An' music first on earth was heard

In Gaelic accents deep,

When Jubal in his oxter squeezed

The blether o' a sheep.

The praw bagpipes is gran', my friens,

The praw bagpipes is fine;

We'll teukta nother pibroch yet,

For the days o' auld lang syne!

Anonymous.

MY FOE

JOHN ALCOHOL, my foe, John,

When we were first acquaint,

I'd siller in my pockets, John,

Which noo, ye ken, I want;

I spent it all in treating, John,

Because I loved you so;

But mark ye, how you've treated me,

John Alcohol, my foe.

John Alcohol, my foe, John,

We've been ower lang together,

Sae ye maun tak' ae road, John,

And I will take anither;

Foe we maun tumble down, John,

If hand in hand we go;

And I shall hae the bill to pay,

John Alcohol, my foe.

John Alcohol, my foe, John,

Ye've blear'd out a' my een,

And lighted up my nose, John,

A fiery sign atween!

My hands wi' palsy shake, John,

My locks are like the snow;

Ye'll surely be the death of me,

John Alcohol, my foe.

John Alcohol, my foe, John,

'Twas love to you, I ween,

That gart me rise sae ear', John,

And sit sae late at e'en;

The best o' friens maun part, John,

It grieves me sair, ye know;

But “we'll nae mair to yon town,"

John Alcohol, my foe.

John Alcohol, my foe, John,

Ye've wrought me muckle skaith,

And yet to part wi' you, John,

I own I'm unko' laith;

But I'll join the temperance ranks, John,

Ye needna say me no;

It's better late than ne'er do weel,

John Alcohol, my foe.

Anonymous.

RIGID BODY SINGS

GIN a body meet a body

Flyin' through the air,

Gin a body hit a body,

Will it fly? and where?

Ilka impact has its measure,

Ne'er a' ane hae I,

Yet a' the lads they measure me,

Or, at least, they try.

Gin a body meet a body

Altogether free,

How they travel afterwards

We do not always see.

Ilka problem has its method

By analytics high;

For me, I ken na ane o' them,

But what the waur am I?

J. C. Maxwell.

AFTER

CATHERINE FANSHAWE

COCKNEY ENIGMA ON THE

LETTER H

I   DWELLS in the Herth and I breathes in the Hair;

If you searches the Hocean you'll find that I'm there;

The first of all Hangels in Holympus am Hi,

Yet I'm banished from 'Eaven, expelled from on 'Igh.

But tho' on this Horb I am destined to grovel,

I'm ne'er seen in an 'Ouse, in an 'Ut, nor an 'Ovel;

Not an 'Oss nor an 'Unter e'er bears me, alas!

But often I'm found on the top of a Hass.

I resides in a Hattic and loves not to roam,

And yet I'm invariably habsent from 'Ome.

Tho' 'ushed in the 'Urricane, of the Hatmosphere part,

I enters no 'Ed, I creeps into no 'Art,

But look and you'll see in the Heye I appear.

Only 'ark and you'll 'ear me just breathe in the Hear;

Tho' in sex not an 'E, I am (strange paradox!),

Not a bit of an 'Effer, but partly a Hox.

Of Heternity Hi'm the beginning! and mark,

Tho' I goes not with Noar, I'm the first in the Hark.

I'm never in 'Elth—have with Fysic no power;

I dies in a Month, but comes back in a Hour.

Horace Mayhew.

AFTER WORDSWORTH

ON WORDSWORTH

HE lived amidst th' untrodden ways

To Rydal Lake that lead;

A bard whom there was none to praise

And very few to read.

Behind a cloud his mystic sense,

Deep hidden, who can spy?

Bright as the night when not a star

Is shining in the sky.

Unread his works—his “Milk White Doe"

With dust is dark and dim;

It's still in Longmans' shop, and oh!

The difference to him.

Anonymous.

JACOB

HE dwelt among “Apartments let,"

About five stories high;

A man, I thought, that none would get,

And very few would try.

A boulder, by a larger stone

Half hidden in the mud,

Fair as a man when only one

Is in the neighborhood.

He lived unknown, and few could tell

When Jacob was not free;

But he has got a wife—and O!

The difference to me!

Phœbe Cary.

FRAGMENT IN IMITATION OF

WORDSWORTH

THERE is a river clear and fair,

'Tis neither broad nor narrow;

It winds a little here and there—

It winds about like any hare;

And then it holds as straight a course

As, on the turnpike road, a horse,

Or, through the air, an arrow.

The trees that grow upon the shore

Have grown a hundred years or more;

So long there is no knowing:

Old Daniel Dobson does not know

When first those trees began to grow;

But still they grew, and grew, and grew,

As if they'd nothing else to do,

But ever must be growing.

The impulses of air and sky

Have reared their stately heads so high,

And clothed their boughs with green;

Their leaves the dews of evening quaff,—

And when the wind blows loud and keen,

I've seen the jolly timbers laugh,

And shake their sides with merry glee—

Wagging their heads in mockery.

Fixed are their feet in solid earth

Where winds can never blow;

But visitings of deeper birth

Have reached their roots below.

For they have gained the river's brink,

And of the living waters drink.

There's little Will, a five years' child—

He is my youngest boy;

To look on eyes so fair and wild,

It is a very joy.

He hath conversed with sun and shower,

And dwelt with every idle flower,

As fresh and gay as them.

He loiters with the briar-rose,—

The blue-bells are his play-fellows,

That dance upon their slender stem.

And I have said, my little Will,

Why should he not continue still

A thing of Nature's rearing?

A thing beyond the world's control—

A living vegetable soul,—

No human sorrow fearing.

It were a blessed sight to see

That child become a willow-tree,

His brother trees among.

He'd be four times as tall as me,

And live three times as long.

Catherine M. Fanshawe.

JANE SMITH

I   JOURNEYED, on a winter's day,

Across the lonely wold;

No bird did sing upon the spray,

And it was very cold.

I had a coach with horses four,

Three white (though one was black),

And on they went the common o'er,

Nor swiftness did they lack.

A little girl ran by the side,

And she was pinched and thin.

“Oh, please, sir, do give me a ride!

I'm fetching mother's gin."

“Enter my coach, sweet child," said I,

“For you shall ride with me;

And I will get you your supply

Of mother's eau-de-vie."

The publican was stern and cold,

And said: “Her mother's score

Is writ, as you shall soon behold,

Behind the bar-room door!"

I blotted out the score with tears,

And paid the money down;

And took the maid of thirteen years

Back to her mother's town.

And though the past with surges wild

Fond memories may sever,

The vision of that happy child

Will leave my spirits never!

Rudyard Kipling.

ONLY SEVEN

(A Pastoral Story after Wordsworth)

I   MARVELLED why a simple child,

That lightly draws its breath,

Should utter groans so very wild,

And look as pale as Death.

Adopting a parental tone,

I ask'd her why she cried;

The damsel answered with a groan,

“I've got a pain inside!

“I thought it would have sent me mad

Last night about eleven."

Said I, “What is it makes you bad?

How many apples have you had?"

She answered, “Only seven!"

“And are you sure you took no more,

My little maid?" quoth I;

“Oh, please, sir, mother gave me four,

But they were in a pie!"

“If that's the case," I stammer'd out,

“Of course you've had eleven."

The maiden answered with a pout,

“I ain't had more nor seven!"

I wonder'd hugely what she meant,

And said, “I'm bad at riddles;

But I know where little girls are sent

For telling taradiddles.

“Now, if you won't reform," said I,

“You'll never go to Heaven."

But all in vain; each time I try,

That little idiot makes reply,

“I ain't had more nor seven!"

POSTSCRIPT

To borrow Wordsworth's name was wrong,

Or slightly misapplied;

And so I'd better call my song,

“Lines after Ache-Inside."

Henry S. Leigh.

LUCY LAKE

POOR Lucy Lake was overgrown,

But somewhat underbrained.

She did not know enough, I own,

To go in when it rained.

Yet Lucy was constrained to go;

Green bedding,—you infer.

Few people knew she died, but oh,

The difference to her!

Newton Mackintosh.

AFTER SIR WALTER SCOTT

YOUNG LOCHINVAR

(The true story in blank verse)

OH! young Lochinvar has come out of the West,

Thro' all the wide border his horse has no equal,

Having cost him forty-five dollars at the market,

Where good nags, fresh from the country,

With burrs still in their tails are selling

For a song; and save his good broadsword

He weapon had none, except a seven shooter

Or two, a pair of brass knuckles, and an Arkansaw

Toothpick in his boot, so, comparatively speaking,

He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone,

Because there was no one going his way.

He stayed not for brake, and he stopped not for

Toll-gates; he swam the Eske River where ford

There was none, and saved fifteen cents

In ferriage, but lost his pocket-book, containing

Seventeen dollars and a half, by the operation.

Ere he alighted at the Netherby mansion

He stopped to borrow a dry suit of clothes,

And this delayed him considerably, so when

He arrived the bride had consented—the gallant

Came late—for a laggard in love and a dastard in war

Was to wed the fair Ellen, and the guests had assembled.

So boldly he entered the Netherby Hall

Among bridesmen and kinsmen and brothers and

Brothers-in-law and forty or fifty cousins;

Then spake the bride's father, his hand on his sword

(For the poor craven bridegroom ne'er opened his head):

“Oh, come ye in peace here, or come ye in anger,

Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?"

“I long wooed your daughter, and she will tell you

I have the inside track in the free-for-all

For her affections! My suit you denied; but let

That pass, while I tell you, old fellow, that love

Swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide,

And now I am come with this lost love of mine

To lead but one measure, drink one glass of beer;

There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far

That would gladly be bride to yours very truly."

The bride kissed the goblet, the knight took it up,

He quaffed off the nectar and threw down the mug,

Smashing it into a million pieces, while

He remarked that he was the son of a gun

From Seven-up and run the Number Nine.

She looked down to blush, but she looked up again

For she well understood the wink in his eye;

He took her soft hand ere her mother could

Interfere, “Now tread we a measure; first four

Half right and left; swing," cried young Lochinvar.

One touch to her hand and one word in her ear,

When they reached the hall-door and the charger

Stood near on three legs eating post-hay;

So light to the croup the fair lady he swung,

Then leaped to the saddle before her.

“She is won! we are gone! over bank! bush, and spar,

They'll have swift steeds that follow"—but in the

Excitement of the moment he had forgotten

To untie the horse, and the poor brute could

Only gallop in a little circus around the

Hitching-post; so the old gent collared

The youth and gave him the awfullest lambasting

That was ever heard of on Canobie Lee;

So dauntless in war and so daring in love,

Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar?

Anonymous.

AFTER COLERIDGE

THE ANCIENT MARINER

(The Wedding Guest's Version of the Affair from His

Point of View)

IT is an Ancient Mariner,

And he stoppeth one of three—

In fact he coolly took my arm—

“There was a ship," quoth he.

“Bother your ships!" said I, “is this

The time a yarn to spin?

This is a wedding, don't you see,

And I am next of kin.

“The wedding breakfast has begun,

We're hungry as can be—

Hold off! Unhand me, longshore man!"

With that his hand dropt he.

But there was something in his eye,

That made me sick and ill,

Yet forced to listen to his yarn—

The Mariner'd had his will.

While Tom and Harry went their way

I sat upon a stone—

So queer on Fanny's wedding day

Me sitting there alone!

Then he began, that Mariner,

To rove from pole to pole,

In one long-winded, lengthened-out,

Eternal rigmarole,

About a ship in which he'd sailed,

Though whither, goodness knows,

Where “ice will split with a thunder-fit,"

And every day it snows.

And then about a precious bird

Of some sort or another,

That—was such nonsense ever heard?—

Used to control the weather!

Now, at this bird the Mariner

Resolved to have a shy,

And laid it low with his cross-bow—

And then the larks! My eye!

For loss of that uncommon fowl,

They couldn't get a breeze;

And there they stuck, all out of luck,

And rotted on the seas.

The crew all died, or seemed to die,

And he was left alone

With that queer bird. You never heard

What games were carried on!

At last one day he stood and watched

The fishes in the sea,

And said, “I'm blest!" and so the ship

Was from the spell set free.

And it began to rain and blow,

And as it rained and blew,

The dead got up and worked the ship—

That was a likely crew!

However, somehow he escaped,

And got again to land,

But mad as any hatter, say,

From Cornhill to the Strand.

For he believes that certain folks

Are singled out by fate,

To whom this cock-and-bull affair

Of his he must relate.

Describing all the incidents,

And painting all the scenes,

As sailors will do in the tales

They tell to the Marines.

Confound the Ancient Mariner!

I knew I should be late;

And so it was; the wedding guests

Had all declined to wait.

Another had my place, and gave

My toast; and sister Fan

Said “'Twas a shame. What could you want

With that seafaring man?"

I felt like one that had been stunned

Through all this wrong and scorn;

A sadder and a later man

I rose the morrow morn.

Anonymous

STRIKING

IT was a railway passenger,

And he lept out jauntilie.

"Now up and bear, thou stout portèr,

My two chattèls to me.

"Bring hither, bring hither my bag so red,

And portmanteau so brown;

(They lie in the van, for a trusty man

He labelled them London town:)

"And fetch me eke a cabman bold,

That I may be his fare, his fare;

And he shall have a good shilling,

If by two of the clock he do me bring

To the Terminus, Euston Square."

"Now,—so to thee the saints alway,

Good gentleman, give luck,—

As never a cab may I find this day,

For the cabman wights have struck.

And now, I wis, at the Red Post Inn,

Or else at the Dog and Duck,

Or at Unicorn Blue, or at Green Griffin,

The nut-brown ale and the fine old gin

Right pleasantly they do suck."

"Now rede me aright, thou stout portèr,

What were it best that I should do:

For woe is me, an' I reach not there

Or ever the clock strike two."

"I have a son, a lytel son;

Fleet is his foot as the wild roebuck's:

Give him a shilling, and eke a brown,

And he shall carry thy fardels down

To Euston, or half over London town,

On one of the station trucks."

Then forth in a hurry did they twain fare,

The gent and the son of the stout portèr,

Who fled like an arrow, nor turned a hair,

Through all the mire and muck:

"A ticket, a ticket, sir clerk, I pray:

For by two of the clock must I needs away."

"That may hardly be," the clerk did say,

"For indeed—the clocks have struck."

Charles S. Calverley.

AFTER SOUTHEY

THE OLD MAN'S COLD AND HOW

HE GOT IT

(By Northey-Southey-Eastey-Westey)

"YOU are cold, Father William," the young man cried,

"You shake and you shiver, I say;

You've a cold, Father William, your nose it is red,

Now tell me the reason, I pray."

"In the days of my youth," Father William replied—

(He was a dissembling old man)

"I put lumps of ice in my grandpapa's boots,

And snowballed my Aunt Mary Ann."

"Go along, Father William," the young man cried,

"You are trying it on, sir, to-day;

What makes your teeth chatter like bone castanets?

Come tell me the reason, I pray."

"In the days of my youth," Father William replied,

"I went to the North Pole with Parry;

And now, my sweet boy, the Arc-tic doloreaux

Plays with this old man the Old Harry."

"Get out! Father William," the young man cried.

"Come, you shouldn't go on in this way;

You are funny, but still you've a frightful bad cold—

Now tell me the reason, I pray."

"I am cold, then, dear youth," Father William replied;

"I've a cold, my impertinent son,

Because for some weeks my coals have been bought

At forty-eight shillings a ton!"

FATHER WILLIAM

"YOU are old, Father William," the young man said,

"And your hair has become very white;

And yet you incessantly stand on your head—

Do you think, at your age, it is right?"

"In my youth," Father William replied to his son,

"I feared it might injure the brain;

But now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,

Why, I do it again and again."

"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,

And grown most uncommonly fat;

Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door—

Pray what is the reason of that?"

"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his gray locks,

"I kept all my limbs very supple

By the use of this ointment—one shilling the box—

Allow me to sell you a couple."

"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak

For anything tougher than suet;

Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak;

Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,

And argued each case with my wife;

And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw,

Has lasted the rest of my life."

"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose

That your eye was as steady as ever;

Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose—

What made you so awfully clever?"

"I have answered three questions and that is enough,"

Said his father; "don't give yourself airs!

Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?

Be off, or I'll kick you downstairs!"

Lewis Carroll

LADY JANE

(Sapphics)

DOWN the green hill-side fro' the castle window

Lady Jane spied Bill Amaranth a-workin';

Day by day watched him go about his ample

Nursery garden.

Cabbages thriv'd there, wi' a mort o' green-stuff—

Kidney beans, broad beans, onions, tomatoes,

Artichokes, seakale, vegetable marrows,

Early potatoes.

Lady Jane cared not very much for all these:

What she cared much for was a glimpse o' Willum

Strippin' his brown arms wi' a view to horti-

Cultural effort.

Little guessed Willum, never extra-vain, that

Up the green hill-side, i' the gloomy castle,

Feminine eyes could so delight to view his

Noble proportions.

Only one day while, in an innocent mood,

Moppin' his brow (cos 'twas a trifle sweaty)

With a blue kerchief—lo, he spies a white un

Coyly responding.

Oh, delightsome Love! Not a jot do you care

For the restrictions set on human inter-

Course by cold-blooded social refiners;

Nor do I, neither.

Day by day, peepin' fro' behind the bean-sticks,

Willum observed that scrap o' white a-wavin',

Till his hot sighs out-growin' all repression

Busted his weskit.

Lady Jane's guardian was a haughty Peer, who

Clung to old creeds and had a nasty temper;

Can we blame Willum that he hardly cared to

Risk a refusal?

Year by year found him busy 'mid the bean-sticks,

Wholly uncertain how on earth to take steps.

Thus for eighteen years he beheld the maiden

Wave fro' her window.

But the nineteenth spring, i' the castle post-bag,

Came by book-post Bill's catalogue o' seedlings

Mark'd wi' blue ink at "Paragraphs relatin'

Mainly to Pumpkins."

"W. A. can," so the Lady Jane read,

"Strongly commend that very noble Gourd, the

Lady Jane, first-class medal, ornamental;

Grows to a great height."

Scarce a year arter, by the scented hedgerows—

Down the mown hill-side, fro' the castle gateway—

Came a long train and, i' the midst, a black bier,

Easily shouldered.

"Whose is yon corse that, thus adorned wi' gourd leaves

Forth ye bear with slow step?" A mourner answer'd,

"'Tis the poor clay-cold body Lady Jane grew

Tired to abide in."

"Delve my grave quick, then, for I die to-morrow.

Delve it one furlong fro' the kidney bean-sticks,

Where I may dream she's goin' on precisely

As she was used to."

Hardly died Bill when, fro' the Lady Jane's grave,

Crept to his white death-bed a lovely pumpkin:

Climb'd the house wall and over-arched his head wi'

Billowy verdure.

Simple this tale!—but delicately perfumed

As the sweet roadside honeysuckle. That's why,

Difficult though its metre was to tackle,

I'm glad I wrote it.

A. T. Quiller-Couch.

AFTER CAMPBELL

THE NEW ARRIVAL

THERE came to port last Sunday night

The queerest little craft,

Without an inch of rigging on;

I looked and looked—and laughed!

It seemed so curious that she

Should cross the Unknown water,

And moor herself within my room—

My daughter! Oh, my daughter!

Yet by these presents witness all

She's welcome fifty times,

And comes consigned in hope and love—

And common-metre rhymes.

She has no manifest but this,

No flag floats o'er the water;

She's too new for the British Lloyds—

My daughter! Oh, my daughter!

Ring out, wild bells—and tame ones too,

Ring out the lover's moon;

Ring in the little worsted socks,

Ring in the bib and spoon.

Ring out the muse, ring in the nurse,

Ring in the milk and water;

Away with paper, pen, and ink—

My daughter! Oh, my daughter!

George Washington Cable.

JOHN THOMPSON'S DAUGHTER

A FELLOW near Kentucky's clime

Cries, "Boatman, do not tarry,

And I'll give thee a silver dime

To row us o'er the ferry."

"Now, who would cross the Ohio,

This dark and stormy water?"

"O, I am this young lady's beau,

And she, John Thompson's daughter.

"We've fled before her father's spite

With great precipitation;

And should he find us here to-night,

I'd lose my reputation.

"They've missed the girl and purse beside,

His horsemen hard have pressed me;

And who will cheer my bonny bride,

If yet they shall arrest me?"

Out spoke the boatman then in time,

"You shall not fail, don't fear it;

I'll go, not for your silver dime,

But for your manly spirit.

"And by my word, the bonny bird

In danger shall not tarry;

For though a storm is coming on,

I'll row you o'er the ferry."

By this the wind more fiercely rose,

The boat was at the landing;

And with the drenching rain their clothes

Grew wet where they were standing.

But still, as wilder rose the wind,

And as the night grew drearer;

Just back a piece came the police,

Their tramping sounded nearer.

"Oh, haste thee, haste!" the lady cries,

"It's anything but funny;

I'll leave the light of loving eyes,

But not my father's money!"

And still they hurried in the face

Of wind and rain unsparing;

John Thompson reached the landing place—

His wrath was turned to swearing.

For by the lightning's angry flash,

His child he did discover;

One lovely hand held all the cash,

And one was round her lover!

"Come back, come back!" he cried in woe,

Across the stormy water;

"But leave the purse, and you may go,

My daughter, oh, my daughter!"

'Twas vain; they reached the other shore

(Such doom the Fates assign us);

The gold he piled went with his child,

And he was left there minus.

Phœbe Cary.

AFTER THOMAS MOORE

THE LAST CIGAR

'TIS a last choice Havana

I hold here alone;

All its fragrant companions

In perfume have flown.

No more of its kindred

To gladden the eye,

So my empty cigar case

I close with a sigh.

I'll not leave thee, thou lone one,

To pine; but the stem

I'll bite off and light thee

To waft thee to them.

And gently I'll scatter

The ashes you shed,

As your soul joins its mates in

A cloud overhead.

All pleasure is fleeting,

It blooms to decay;

From the weeds' glowing circle

The ash drops away.

A last whiff is taken,

The butt-end is thrown,

And with empty cigar-case,

I sit all alone.

Anonymous.

'TWAS EVER THUS

I   NEVER bought a young gazelle,

To glad me with its soft black eye,

But, when it came to know me well,

'Twas sure to butt me on the sly.

I never drilled a cockatoo,

To speak with almost human lip,

But, when a pretty phrase it knew,

'Twas sure to give some friend a nip.

I never trained a collie hound

To be affectionate and mild,

But, when I thought a prize I'd found,

'Twas sure to bite my youngest child.

I never kept a tabby kit

To cheer my leisure with its tricks,

But, when we all grew fond of it,

'Twas sure to catch the neighbor's chicks.

I never reared a turtle-dove,

To coo all day with gentle breath,

But, when its life seemed one of love,

'Twas sure to peck its mate to death.

I never—well I never yet—

And I have spent no end of pelf—

Invested money in a pet

That didn't misconduct itself.

Anonymous.

"THERE'S A BOWER OF BEAN-VINES"

There's a bower of bean-vines in Benjamin's yard,

And the cabbages grow round it, planted for greens;

In the time of my childhood 'twas terribly hard

To bend down the bean-poles, and pick off the beans.

That bower and its products I never forget,

But oft, when my landlady presses me hard,

I think, are the cabbages growing there yet,

Are the bean-vines still bearing in Benjamin's yard?

No, the bean-vines soon withered that once used to wave,

But some beans had been gathered, the last that hung on;

And a soup was distilled in a kettle, that gave

All the fragrance of summer when summer was gone.

Thus memory draws from delight, ere it dies,

An essence that breathes of it awfully hard;

As thus good to my taste as 'twas then to my eyes,

Is that bower of bean-vines in Benjamin's yard.

Phœbe Cary.

DISASTER

'TWAS ever thus from childhood's hour!

My fondest hopes would not decay;

I never loved a tree or flower

Which was the first to fade away!

The garden, where I used to delve

Short-frock'd, still yields me pinks in plenty;

The pear-tree that I climbed at twelve

I see still blossoming, at twenty.

I never nursed a dear gazelle;

But I was given a parroquet—

(How I did nurse him if unwell!)

He's imbecile, but lingers yet.

He's green, with an enchanting tuft;

He melts me with his small black eye;

He'd look inimitable stuffed,

And knows it—but he will not die!

I had a kitten—I was rich

In pets—but all too soon my kitten

Became a full-sized cat, by which

I've more than once been scratched and bitten.

And when for sleep her limbs she curl'd

One day beside her untouch'd plateful,

And glided calmly from the world,

I freely own that I was grateful.

And then I bought a dog—a queen!

Ah, Tiny, dear departing pug!

She lives, but she is past sixteen

And scarce can crawl across the rug.

I loved her beautiful and kind;

Delighted in her pert bow-wow;

But now she snaps if you don't mind;

'Twere lunacy to love her now.

I used to think, should e'er mishap

Betide my crumple-visaged Ti,

In shape of prowling thief, or trap,

Or coarse bull-terrier—I should die.

But ah! disasters have their use,

And life might e'en be too sunshiny;

Nor would I make myself a goose,

If some big dog should swallow Tiny.

Charles S. Calverley.

SARAH'S HALLS

THE broom that once through Sarah's halls,

In hole and corner sped,

Now useless leans 'gainst Sarah's walls

And gathers dust instead.

So sweeps the slavey now-a-days

So work is shifted o'er,

And maids that once gained honest praise

Now earn that praise no more!

No more the cobweb from its height

The broom of Sarah fells;

The fly alone unlucky wight

Invades the spider's cells.

Thus energy so seldom wakes,

All sign that Sarah gives

Is when some dish or platter breaks,

To show that still she lives.

Judy.

'TWAS EVER THUS

I   NEVER rear'd a young gazelle,

(Because, you see, I never tried);

But had it known and loved me well,

No doubt the creature would have died.

My rich and aged Uncle John

Has known me long and loves me well

But still persists in living on—

I would he were a young gazelle.

I never loved a tree or flower;

But, if I had, I beg to say

The blight, the wind, the sun, or shower

Would soon have withered it away.

I've dearly loved my Uncle John,

From childhood to the present hour,

And yet he will go living on on—

I would he were a tree or flower!

Henry S. Leigh.

AFTER JANE TAYLOR

THE BAT

TWINKLE, twinkle, little bat!

How I wonder what you're at!

Up above the world you fly,

Like a tea-tray in the sky.

Lewis Carroll.

AFTER BARRY CORNWALL

THE TEA

THE tea! The tea! The beef, beef-tea!

The brew from gravy-beef for me!

Without a doubt, as I'll be bound,

The best for an invalid 'tis found;

It's better than gruel; with sago vies;

Or with the cradled babe's supplies.

I like beef-tea! I like beef-tea,

I'm satisfied, and aye shall be,

With the brew I love, and the brew I know,

And take it wheresoe'er I go.

If the price should rise, or meat be cheap,

No matter. I'll to beef-tea keep.

I love—oh, how I love to guide

The strong beef-tea to its place inside,

When round and round you stir the spoon

Or whistle thereon to cool it soon.

Because one knoweth—or ought to know,

That things get cool whereon you blow.

I never have drunk the dull souchong,

But I for my loved beef-tea did long,

And inly yearned for that bountiful zest,

Like a bird. As a child on that I messed—

And a mother it was and is to me,

For I was weaned on the beef—beef-tea!

Tom Hood, Jr.

AFTER BYRON

THE ROUT OF BELGRAVIA

THE Belgravians came down on the Queen in her hold,

And their costumes were gleaming with purple and gold,

And the sheen of their jewels was like stars on the sea,

As their chariots rolled proudly down Piccadill-ee.

Like the leaves of Le Follet when summer is green,

That host in its glory at noontide was seen;

Like the leaves of a toy-book all thumb-marked and worn,

That host four hours later was tattered and torn.

For the rush of the crowd, which was eager and vast,

Had rumpled and ruined and wrecked as it passed;

And the eyes of the wearer waxed angry in haste,

As a dress but once worn was dragged out at the waist.

And there lay the feather and fan side by side,

But no longer they nodded or waved in their pride;

And there lay lace flounces and ruching in slips,

And spur-torn material in plentiful strips.

And there were odd gauntlets and pieces of hair;

And fragments of back-combs and slippers were there;

And the gay were all silent, their mirth was all hushed,

Whilst the dewdrops stood out on the brows of the crushed.

And the dames of Belgravia were loud in their wail,

And the matrons of Mayfair all took up the tale;

And they vow as they hurry unnerved from the scene,

That it's no trifling matter to call on the Queen.

Jon Duan.

A GRIEVANCE

DEAR Mr. Editor: I wish to say—

If you will not be angry at my writing it—

But I've been used, since childhood's happy day,

When I have thought of something, to inditing it;

I seldom think of things; and, by the way,

Although this metre may not be exciting, it

Enables one to be extremely terse,

Which is not what one always is in verse.

I used to know a man, such things befall

The observant wayfarer through Fate's domain

He was a man, take him for all in all,

We shall not look upon his like again;

I know that statement's not original;

What statement is, since Shakespere? or, since Cain,

What murder? I believe 'twas Shakespere said it, or

Perhaps it may have been your Fighting Editor.

Though why an Editor should fight, or why

A Fighter should abase himself to edit,

Are problems far too difficult and high

For me to solve with any sort of credit.

Some greatly more accomplished man than I

Must tackle them: let's say then Shakespere said it;

And, if he did not, Lewis Morris may

(Or even if he did). Some other day,

When I have nothing pressing to impart,

I should not mind dilating on this matter.

I feel its import both in head and heart,

And always did,—especially the latter.

I could discuss it in the busy mart

Or on the lonely housetop; hold! this chatter

Diverts me from my purpose. To the point:

The time, as Hamlet said, is out of joint,

And perhaps I was born to set it right,—

A fact I greet with perfect equanimity.

I do not put it down to "cursed spite,"

I don't see any cause for cursing in it. I

Have always taken very great delight

In such pursuits since first I read divinity.

Whoever will may write a nation's songs

As long as I'm allowed to right its wrongs.

What's Eton but a nursery of wrong-righters,

A mighty mother of effective men;

A training ground for amateur reciters,

A sharpener of the sword as of the pen;

A factory of orators and fighters,

A forcing-house of genius? Now and then

The world at large shrinks back, abashed and beaten,

Unable to endure the glare of Eton.

I think I said I knew a man: what then?

I don't suppose such knowledge is forbid.

We nearly all do, more or less, know men,—

Or think we do; nor will a man get rid

Of that delusion, while he wields a pen.

But who this man was, what, if aught, he did,

Nor why I mentioned him, I do not know;

Nor what I "wished to say" a while ago.

J. K. Stephen.

AFTER CHARLES WOLFE

THE BURIAL OF THE BACHELOR

NOT a laugh was heard, not a frivolous note,

As the groom to the wedding we carried;

Not a jester discharged his farewell shot

As the bachelor went to be married.

We married him quickly that morning bright,

The leaves of our prayer-books turning,

In the chancel's dimly religious light,

And tears in our eyelids burning.

No useless nosegay adorned his chest,

Not in chains but in laws we bound him;

And he looked like a bridegroom trying his best

To look used to the scene around him.

Few and small were the fees it cost,

And we spoke not a word of sorrow,

But we silently gazed on the face of the lost

And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

We thought as we hurried him home to be fed,

And tried our low spirits to rally,

That the weather looked very like squalls overhead

For the passage from Dover to Calais.

Lightly they'll talk of the bachelor gone,

And o'er his frail fondness upbraid him;

But little he'll reck if they let him alone,

With his wife that the parson hath made him.

But half of our heavy task was done,

When the clock struck the hour for retiring;

And we judged by the knocks which had now begun

That their cabby was rapidly tiring.

Slowly and sadly we led them down,

From the scene of his lame oratory;

We told the four-wheeler to drive them to town,

And we left them alone in their glory.

Anonymous.

NOT A SOU HAD HE GOT

NOT a sou had he got—not a guinea or note,

And he looked confoundedly flurried

As he bolted away without paying his shot,

And the Landlady after him hurried.

We saw him again at dead of night,

When home from the club returning;

We twigged the Doctor beneath the light

Of the gas-lamp brilliantly burning.

All bare and exposed to the midnight dews,

Reclined in the gutter we found him;

And he look'd like a gentleman taking a snooze,

With his Marshal cloak around him.

"The Doctor's as drunk as the d——," we said,

And we managed a shutter to borrow;

We raised him, and sighed at the thought that his head

Would "consumedly ache" on the morrow.

We bore him home, and we put him to bed,

And we told his wife and his daughter

To give him, next morning, a couple of red

Herrings, with soda-water.

Loudly they talked of his money that's gone

And his lady began to upbraid him;

But little he reck'd, so they let him snore on

'Neath the counterpane just as we laid him.

We tucked him in, and had hardly done

When, beneath the window calling,

We heard the rough voice of a son of a gun

Of a watchman "One o'clock!" bawling.

Slowly and sadly we all walk'd down

From his room in the uppermost story;

A rushlight was placed on the cold hearth-stone,

And we left him alone in his glory!

R. Harris Barham.

THE MARRIAGE OF SIR JOHN

SMITH

NOT a sigh was heard, nor a funeral tone,

As the man to his bridal we hurried;

Not a woman discharged her farewell groan,

On the spot where the fellow was married.

We married him just about eight at night,

Our faces paler turning,

By the struggling moonbeam's misty light,

And the gas-lamp's steady burning.

No useless watch-chain covered his vest,

Nor over-dressed we found him;

But he looked like a gentleman wearing his best,

With a few of his friends around him.

Few and short were the things we said,

And we spoke not a word of sorrow,

But we silently gazed on the man that was wed,

And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

We thought, as we silently stood about,

With spite and anger dying,

How the merest stranger had cut us out,

With only half our trying.

Lightly we'll talk of the fellow that's gone,

And oft for the past upbraid him;

But little he'll reck if we let him live on,

In the house where his wife conveyed him.

But our heavy task at length was done,

When the clock struck the hour for retiring;

And we heard the spiteful squib and pun

The girls were sullenly firing.

Slowly and sadly we turned to go,—

We had struggled, and we were human;

We shed not a tear, and we spoke not our woe,

But we left him alone with his woman.

Phœbe Cary.

AFTER MRS. HEMANS

THE THYROID GLAND

"WE hear thee speak of the thyroid gland,

But what thou say'st we don't understand;

Professor, where does the acinus dwell?

We hashed our dissection and can't quite tell.

Is it where the mascula lutea flows,

And the suprachordial tissue grows?"

"Not there, not there, my class!"

"Is it far away where the bronchi part

And the pneumogastric controls the heart?

Where endothelium encardium lines,

And a subpericardial nerve intertwines?

Where the subpleural plexus of lymphatics expand?

Is it there, Professor, that gruesome gland?"

"Not there, not there, my class!"

"I have not seen it, my gentle youths,

My myxoedemia, I'm told, it soothes.

Landois says stolidly 'functions unknown;'

Foster adopts an enquiring tone.

Duct does not lead to its strange recess,

Far below the vertex, above the pes,

It is there, I am told, my class!"

R. M.

AFTER KEATS

I.

ODE ON A JAR OF PICKLES

A   SWEET, acidulous, down-reaching thrill

Pervades my sense. I seem to see or hear

The lushy garden-grounds of Greenwich Hill

In autumn, where the crispy leaves are sere;

And odors haunt me of remotest spice

From the Levant or musky-aired Cathay,

Or from the saffron-fields of Jericho,

Where everything is nice.

The more I sniff, the more I swoon away,

And what else mortal palate craves, forego.

II.

Odors unsmelled are keen, but those I smell

Are keener; wherefore let me sniff again!

Enticing walnuts, I have known ye well

In youth, when pickles were a passing pain;

Unwitting youth, that craves the candy stem,

And sugar plums to olives doth prefer,

And even licks the pots of marmalade

When sweetness clings to them.

But now I dream of ambergris and myrrh,

Tasting these walnuts in the poplar shade.

III.

Lo! hoarded coolness in the heart of noon,

Plucked with its dew, the cucumber is here,

As to the Dryad's parching lips a boon,

And crescent bean-pods, unto Bacchus dear;

And, last of all, the pepper's pungent globe,

The scarlet dwelling of the sylph of fire,

Provoking purple draughts; and, surfeited,

I cast my trailing robe

O'er my pale feet, touch up my tuneless lyre,

And twist the Delphic wreath to suit my head.

IV.

Here shall my tongue in otherwise be soured

Than fretful men's in parched and palsied days;

And, by the mid-May's dusky leaves embowered,

Forget the fruitful blame, the scanty praise.

No sweets to them who sweet themselves were born,

Whose natures ooze with lucent saccharine;

Who, with sad repetition soothly cloyed,

The lemon-tinted morn

Enjoy, and find acetic twilight fine.

Wake I, or sleep? The pickle-jar is void.

Bayard Taylor.

AFTER HEINE

IMITATION

MY love she leans from the window

Afar in a rosy land;

And red as a rose are her blushes,

And white as a rose her hand.

And the roses cluster around her,

And mimic her tender grace;

And nothing but roses can blossom

Wherever she shows her face.

I dwell in a land of winter,

From my love a world apart,—

But the snow blooms over with roses

At the thought of her in my heart.

This German style of poem

Is uncommonly popular now;

For the worst of us poets can do it—

Since Heine showed us how.

H. C. Bunner.

COMMONPLACES

RAIN on the face of the sea,

Rain on the sodden land,

And the window-pane is blurred with rain

As I watch it, pen in hand.

Mist on the face of the sea,

Mist on the sodden land,

Filling the vales as daylight fails,

And blotting the desolate sand.

Voices from out of the mist,

Calling to one another:

"Hath love an end, thou more than friend,

Thou dearer than ever brother?"

Voices from out of the mist,

Calling and passing away;

But I cannot speak, for my voice is weak,

And . . . this is the end of my lay.

Rudyard Kipling.

AFTER HOOD

SONG OF THE SHEET

THE DRIPPING SHEET

This sheet wrung out of cold or tepid water is thrown around the body. Quick rubbing follows, succeeded by the same operation with a dry sheet. Its operation is truly shocking. Dress after to prevent remarks.

WITH nerves all shattered and worn,

With shouts terrific and loud,

A patient stood in a cold wet sheet—

A Grindrod's patent shroud.

Wet, wet, wet,

In douche and spray and sleet,

And still, with a voice I shall never forget,

He sang the song of the sheet.

"Drip, drip, drip,

Dashing, and splashing, and dipping;

And drip, drip, drip,

Till your fat all melts to dripping.

It's oh, for dry deserts afar,

Or let me rather endure

Curing with salt in a family jar,

If this is the water cure.

"Rub, rub, rub,

He'll rub away life and limb;

Rub, rub, rub

It seems to be fun for him.

Sheeted from head to foot,

I'd rather be covered with dirt;

I'll give you the sheet and the blankets to boot,

If you'll only give me my shirt.

"Oh, men, with arms and hands,

Oh, men, with legs and shins,

It is not the sheet you're wearing out,

But human creatures' skins.

Rub, rub, rub,

Body, and legs, and feet;

Rubbing at once with a double rub,

A skin as well as a sheet.

"My wife will see me no more—

She'll see the bone of her bone,

But never will see the flesh of her flesh,

For I'll have no flesh of my own.

The little that was my own,

They won't allow me to keep;

It's a pity that flesh should be so dear,

And water so very cheap.

"Pack, pack, pack,

Whenever your spirit flags,

You're doomed by hydropathic laws

To be packed in cold water rags;

Rolled up on bed or on floor,

Or sweated to death in a chair;

But my chairman's rank—my shadow I'd thank

For taking my place in there.

"Slop, slop, slop,

Never a moment of time;

Slop, slop, slop,

Slackened like mason's lime.

Stand and freeze and steam—

Steam or freeze and stand;

I wish those friends had their tongues benumbed,

That told me to leave dry land.

"Up, up, up,

In the morn before daylight,

The bathman cries 'Get up,'

(I wish he were up for a fight).

While underneath the eaves,

The dry snug swallows cling;

But give them a cold wet sheet to their backs,

And see if they'll come next spring.

"Oh! oh! it stops my breath,

(He calls it short and sweet),

Could they hear me underneath

I'll shout them from the street!

He says that in half an hour

A different man I'll feel;

That I'll jump half over the moon and want

To walk into a meal!

"I feel more nerve and power,

And less of terror and grief;

I'm thinking now of love and hope—

And now of mutton and beef.

This glorious scene will rouse my heart,

Oh, who would lie in bed?

I cannot stop, but jump and hop,

Going like needle and thread."

With buoyant spirit upborne,

With cheeks both healthy and red,

The same man ran up the Malvern Crags,

Pitying those in bed.

Trip, trip, trip,

Oh, life with health is sweet;

And still in a voice both strong and quick,

Would that its tones could reach the sick,

He sang the Song of the Sheet.

Anonymous.

I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER

I   REMEMBER, I remember,

The house where I was wed,

And the little room from which that night

My smiling bride was led.

She didn't come a wink too soon,

Nor make too long a stay;

But now I often wish her folks

Had kept the girl away!

I remember, I remember,

Her dresses, red and white,

Her bonnets and her caps and cloaks,—

They cost an awful sight!

The "corner lot" on which I built,

And where my brother met

At first my wife, one washing-day,—

That man is single yet!

I remember, I remember,

Where I was used to court,

And thought that all of married life

Was just such pleasant sport:—

My spirit flew in feathers then,

No care was on my brow;

I scarce could wait to shut the gate,—

I'm not so anxious now!

I remember, I remember,

My dear one's smile and sigh;

I used to think her tender heart

Was close against the sky.

It was a childish ignorance,

But now it soothes me not

To know I'm farther off from Heaven

Than when she wasn't got!

Phœbe Cary.

AFTER ALFRED BUNN

A YULE-TIDE PARODY

WHEN other wits and other bards,

Their tales at Christmas tell,

Or praise on cheap and colored cards

The time they love so well,

Secure from scorn and ridicule

I hope my verse may be,

If I can still remember Yule,

And Yule remember me.

The days are dark, the days are drear,

When dull December dies;

But, while we mourn an ended year,

Another's star will rise.

I hail the season formed by rule

For merriment and glee;

So let me still remember Yule,

And Yule remember me.

The rich plum-pudding I enjoy,

I greet the pie of mince;

And loving both while yet a boy,

Have loved them ever since.

More dull were I than any mule

That eyes did ever see,

If I should not remember Yule,

And Yule remember me.

Anonymous.

SELF-EVIDENT

WHEN other lips and other eyes

Their tales of love shall tell,

Which means the usual sort of lies

You've heard from many a swell;

When, bored with what you feel is bosh,

You'd give the world to see

A friend, whose love you know will wash,

Oh, then remember me!

When Signor Solo goes his tours,

And Captain Craft's at Ryde,

And Lord Fitzpop is on the moors,

And Lord knows who besides;

When to exist you feel a task

Without a friend at tea,

At such a moment I but ask

That you'll remember me.

J. R. Planché.

AFTER LORD MACAULAY

THE LAUREATE'S TOURNEY

By the Hon. T— B— M.

FYTTE THE FIRST

"WHAT news, what news, thou pilgrim gray, what news from the southern land?

How fare the bold Conservatives, how is it with Ferrand?

How does the little Prince of Wales—how looks our lady Queen?

And tell me, is the monthly nurse once more at Windsor seen?"

"I bring no tidings from the Court, nor from St. Stephen's hall;

I've heard the thundering tramp of horse, and the trumpet's battle-call;

And these old eyes have seen a fight, which England ne'er had seen,

Since fell King Richard sobbed his soul through blood on Bosworth Green.

"'He's dead, he's dead, the Laureate's dead!' 'Twas thus the cry began,

And straightway every garret-roof gave up its minstrel man;

From Grub Street, and from Houndsditch, and from Farringdon Within,

The poets all towards Whitehall poured on with eldritch din.

"Loud yelled they for Sir James the Graham; but sore afraid was he;

A hardy knight were he that might face such a minstrelsie.

'Now by St. Giles of Netherby, my patron Saint, I swear,

I'd rather by a thousand crowns Lord Palmerston were here!—

"'What is't ye seek, ye rebel knaves—what make you there beneath?'

'The bays, the bays! we want the bays! we seek the laureate wreath!

We seek the butt of generous wine that cheers the son of song;

Choose thou among us all, Sir Knight—we may not tarry long!'

"Loud laughed the good Sir James in scorn 'Rare jest it were, I think,

But one poor butt of Xeres, and a thousand rogues to drink!

An' if it flowed with wine or beer, 'tis easy to be seen,

That dry within the hour would be the well of Hippocrene.

"'Tell me, if on Parnassus' heights there grow a thousand sheaves;

Or has Apollo's laurel bush yet borne ten hundred leaves?

Or if so many leaves were there, how long would they sustain

The ravage and the glutton bite of such a locust train?

"'No! get ye back into your dens, take counsel for the night,

And choose me out two champions to meet in deadly fight;

To-morrow's dawn shall see the lists marked out in Spitalfields,

And he who wins shall have the bays, and he shall die who yields!'

"Down went the window with a crash,—in silence and in fear

Each ragged bard looked anxiously upon his neighbor near;

Then up and spake young Tennyson—'Who's here that fears for death?

'Twere better one of us shall die, than England lose the wreath!

"Let's cast the lot among us now, which two shall fight to-morrow;

For armor bright we'll club our mite, and horses we can borrow;

'T were shame that bards of France should sneer, and German Dichters too,

If none of British song might dare a deed of derringdo!'

"'The lists of Love are mine,' said Moore, 'and not the lists of Mars;'

Said Hunt, 'I seek the jars of wine, but shun the combat's jars!'

'I'm old,' quoth Samuel Rogers.—'Faith,' says Campbell, 'so am I!'

'And I'm in holy orders, sir!' quoth Tom of Ingoldsby.

"'Now out upon ye, craven loons,' cried Moxon, good at need;

'Bide, if ye will, secure at home, and sleep while others bleed.

I second Alfred's motion, boys,—let's try the chance of lot;

And monks shall sing, and bells shall ring, for him that goes to pot.'

"Eight hundred minstrels slunk away—two hundred stayed to draw;

Now Heaven protect the daring wight that pulls the longest straw!

'Tis done! 'tis done! And who hath won? Keep silence one and all,—

The first is William Wordsworth hight, the second Ned Fitzball!"

FYTTE THE SECOND

Oh, bright and gay hath dawned the day on lordly Spitalfields,—

How flash the rays with ardent blaze from polished helms and shields!

On either side the chivalry of England throng the green,

And in the middle balcony appears our gracious Queen.

With iron fists, to keep the lists, two valiant knights appear,

The Marquis Hal of Waterford, and stout Sir Aubrey Vere.

"What ho! there, herald, blow the trump! Let's see who comes to claim

The butt of golden Xeres, and the Laureate's honored name!"

That instant dashed into the lists, all armed from head to heel,

On courser brown, with vizor down, a warrior sheathed in steel;

Then said our Queen—"Was ever seen so stout a knight and tall?

His name—his race?"—"An't please your grace, it is the brave Fitzball.

"Oft in the Melodrama line his prowess hath been shown,

And well throughout the Surrey side his thirst for blood is known.

But see, the other champion comes!"—Then rang the startled air

With shouts of "Wordsworth, Wordsworth, ho! the bard of Rydal's there."

And lo! upon a little steed, unmeet for such a course,

Appeared the honored veteran; but weak seemed man and horse.

Then shook their ears the sapient peers,—"That joust will soon be done:

My Lord of Brougham, I'll back Fitzball, and give you two to one!"

"Done," quoth the Brougham,—"And done with you!" "Now minstrels, are you ready?"

Exclaimed the Lord of Waterford,—"You'd better both sit steady.

Blow, trumpets, blow the note of charge! and forward to the fight!"

"Amen!" said good Sir Aubrey Vere; "Saint Schism defend the right!"

As sweeps the blast against the mast when blows the furious squall,

So started at the trumpet's sound the terrible Fitzball;

His lance he bore his breast before,—Saint George protect the just!

Or Wordsworth's hoary head must roll along the shameful dust!

"Who threw that calthrop? Seize the knave!" Alas! the deed is done;

Down went the steed, and o'er his head flew bright Apollo's son.

"Undo his helmet! cut the lace! pour water on his head!"

"It ain't no use at all, my lord; 'cos vy? the covey's dead!"

Above him stood the Rydal bard—his face was full of woe.

"Now there thou liest, stiff and stark, who never feared a foe:

A braver knight, or more renowned in tourney and in hall,

Ne'er brought the upper gallery down than terrible Fitzball!"

They led our Wordsworth to the Queen—she crowned him with the bays

And wished him many happy years, and many quarter-days;

And if you'd have the story told by abler lips than mine,

You've but to call at Rydal Mount, and taste the Laureate's wine!

William Aytoun.

AFTER EMERSON

MUTTON

IF the fat butcher thinks he slays,

Or he—the mutton—thinks he's slain,

Why, "troth is truth," the eater says—

"I'll come, and cut and come again."

To hungry wolves that on him leer

Mutton is cheap, and sheep the same,

No famished god would at him sneer—

To famine, chops are more than fame.

Who hiss at him, him but assures

That they are geese, but wanting wings—

Your coat is his whose life is yours,

And baa! the hymn the mutton sings.

Ye curs, and gods of grander blood,

And you, ye Paddies fresh from Cork,

Come taste, ye lovers of the good—

Eat! Stuff! and turn your back on pork.

Anonymous.

AFTER MARY HOWITT

THE LOBSTER QUADRILLE

"WILL you walk a little faster?" said a whiting to a snail,

"There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my tail.

See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!

They are waiting on the shingle—will you come and join the dance?

Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?

Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?

"You can really have no notion how delightful it will be

When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!"

But the snail replied "Too far, too far!" and gave a look askance—

Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance.

Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance.

Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance.

"What matters it how far we go?" his scaly friend replied.

"There is another shore, you know, upon the other side.

The further off from England the nearer is to France—

Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.

Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?

Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?"

Lewis Carroll.

AFTER MRS. BROWNING

IN THE GLOAMING

IN the gloaming to be roaming, where the crested waves are foaming,

And the shy mermaidens combing locks that ripple to their feet;

When the gloaming is, I never made the ghost of an endeavor

To discover—but whatever were the hour, it would be sweet.

"To their feet," I say, for Leech's sketch indisputably teaches

That the mermaids of our beaches do not end in ugly tails,

Nor have homes among the corals; but are shod with neat balmorals,

An arrangement no one quarrels with, as many might with scales.

Sweet to roam beneath a shady cliff, of course with some young lady,

Lalage, Nærea, Haidee, or Elaine, or Mary Ann:

Love, you dear delusive dream, you! Very sweet your victims deem you,

When, heard only by the seamew, they talk all the stuff one can.

Sweet to haste, a licensed lover, to Miss Pinkerton, the glover;

Having managed to discover what is dear Nærea's "size":

P'raps to touch that wrist so slender, as your tiny gift you tender,

And to read you're no offender, in those laughing hazel eyes.

Then to hear her call you "Harry," when she makes you fetch and carry—

O young men about to marry, what a blessed thing it is!

To be photograph'd—together—cased in pretty Russia leather—

Hear her gravely doubting whether they have spoilt your honest phiz!

Then to bring your plighted fair one first a ring—a rich and rare one—

Next a bracelet, if she'll wear one, and a heap of things beside;

And serenely bending o'er her, to inquire if it would bore her

To say when her own adorer may aspire to call her bride!

Then, the days of courtship over, with your WIFE to start for Dover

Or Dieppe—and live in clover evermore, what e'er befalls;

For I've read in many a novel that, unless they've souls that grovel

Folks prefer in fact a hovel to your dreary marble halls.

To sit, happy married lovers; Phillis trifling with a plover's

Egg, while Corydon uncovers with a grace the Sally Lunn,

Or dissects the lucky pheasant—that, I think, were passing pleasant,

As I sit alone at present, dreaming darkly of a Dun.

C. S. Calverley.

GWENDOLINE

'TWAS not the brown of chestnut boughs

That shadowed her so finely;

It was the hair that swept her brows,

And framed her face divinely;

Her tawny hair, her purple eyes,

The spirit was ensphered in,

That took you with such swift surprise,

Provided you had peered in.

Her velvet foot amid the moss

And on the daisies patted,

As, querulous with sense of loss,

It tore the herbage matted.

"And come he early, come he late,"

She saith, "it will undo me;

The sharp fore-speeded shaft of fate

Already quivers through me.

"When I beheld his red-roan steed,

I knew what aim impelled it.

And that dim scarf of silver brede,

I guessed for whom he held it.

I recked not, while he flaunted by,

Of Love's relentless vi'lence

Yet o'er me crashed the summer sky,

In thunders of blue silence.

"His hoof-prints crumbled down the dale,

But left behind their lava;

What should have been my woman's mail

Grew jellied as guava.

I looked him proud, but 'neath my pride

I felt a boneless tremor;

He was the Beér, I descried,

And I was but the Seemer!

"Ah, how to be what then I seemed,

And bid him seem that is so!

We always tangle threads we dreamed,

And contravene our bliss so,

I see the red-roan steed again!

He looks as something sought he;

Why, hoity-toity!—he is fain,

So I'll be cold and haughty!"

Bayard Taylor.

AFTER LONGFELLOW

THE MODERN HIAWATHA

HE killed the noble Mudjokivis.

Of the skin he made him mittens,

Made them with the fur side inside,

Made them with the skin side outside.

He, to get the warm side inside,

Put the inside skin side outside;

He, to get the cold side outside,

Put the warm side fur side inside.

That's why he put the fur side inside,

Why he put the skin side outside,

Why he turned them inside outside.

Anonymous.

HIGHER

THE shadows of night were a-comin' down swift,

And the dazzlin' snow lay drift on drift,

As thro' a village a youth did go,

A-carryin' a flag with this motto,—

Higher!

O'er a forehead high curled copious hair,

His nose a Roman, complexion fair,

O'er an eagle eye an auburn lash,

And he never stopped shoutin' thro' his moustache!

"Higher!"

He saw thro' the windows as he kept gettin' upper

A number of families sittin' at supper,

But he eyes the slippery rocks very keen

And fled as he cried, and cried while a fleein'—

"Higher!"

"Take care you there!" said an old woman; "stop!

It's blowing gales up there on top—

You'll tumble off on t'other side!"

But the hurryin' stranger loud replied,

"Higher!"

"Oh! don't you go up such a shocking night,

Come sleep on my lap," said a maiden bright.

On his Roman nose a tear-drop come,

But still he remarked, as he upward clomb,

"Higher!"

"Look out for the branch of that sycamore-tree!

Dodge rolling stones, if any you see!"

Sayin' which the farmer went home to bed

And the singular voice replied overhead,

"Higher!"

About quarter past six the next afternoon,

A man accidentally goin' up soon,

Heard spoken above him as often as twice

The very same word in a very weak voice,

"Higher!"

And not far, I believe, from quarter of seven—

He was slow gettin' up, the road bein' uneven—

Found the stranger dead in the drifted snow,

Still clutchin' the flag with the motto—

Higher!

Yes! lifeless, defunct, without any doubt,

The lamp of life being decidedly out,

On the dreary hillside the youth was a layin'!

And there was no more use for him to be sayin'

"Higher!"

Anonymous.

TOPSIDE GALAH!

THAT nightee teem he come chop, chop,

One young man walkee, no can stop,

Colo makee; icee makee;

He got flag; chop b'long welly culio, see—

Topside Galah!

He too muchee folly; one piecee eye

Lookee sharp—so fashion—alla same mi;

He talkee largee, talkee stlong,

To muchee culio; alla same gong—

Topside Galah!

Inside any house he can see light;

Any piecee loom got fire all light;

He lookee see plenty ice more high,

Inside he mouf he plenty cly—

Topside Galah!

"No can walkee!" olo man speakee he;

"Bimeby lain come, no can see;

Hab got water welly wide!"

Maskee, mi must go topside—

Topside Galah!

"Man-man," one galo talkee he,

"What for you go topside look see?"

"Nother teem," he makee plenty cly,

Maskee, alla teem walkee plenty high—

Topside Galah!

"Take care that spilum tlee, young man;

Take care that icee!" he no man-man

That coolie chin-chin he good-night;

He talkee "mi can go all light"—

Topside Galah!

Joss pidgin man chop-chop begin,

Morning teem that Joss chin-chin,

No see any man, he plenty fear,

Cause some man talkee, he can hear—

Topside Galah!

Young man makee die; one largee dog see

Too muchee bobbery, findee he.

Hand too muchee colo, inside can stop

Alla same piecee flag, got culio chop—

Topside Galah!

Anonymous.

EXCELSIOR

THE swampy State of Illinois

Contained a greenish sort of boy,

Who read with idiotic joy—

"Excelsior!"

He tarried not to eat or drink,

But put a flag of lightish pink,

And traced on it in violet ink—

Excelsior!

Though what he meant by that absurd,

Uncouth, and stupid, senseless word,

Has not been placed upon record—

Excelsior!

The characters were very plain,

In German text, yet he was fain

With greater clearness to explain—

Excelsior!

And so he ran, this stupid wight,

And hollered out with all his might,

(As to a person out of sight)—

"Excelsior!"

And everybody thought the lad

Within an ace of being mad,

Who cried in accents stern and sad—

"Excelsior!"

"Come to my arms," the maiden cried;

The youth grinned sheepishly, and sighed,

And then appropriately replied—

"Excelsior!"

The evening sun is in the sky,

But still the creature mounts on high

And shouts (nor gives a reason why)

"Excelsior!"

And ere he gains the topmost crag

His feeble legs begin to lag;

Unsteadily he holds the flag—

Excelsior!

Now P. C. Nab is on his track!

He puts him in an empty sack,

And brings him home upon his back—

Excelsior!

Nab takes him to a lumber store,

They toss him in and lock the door,

Which only makes him bawl the more—

"Excelsior!"

Anonymous.

"THE DAY IS DONE"

THE day is done, and darkness

From the wing of night is loosed,

As a feather is wafted downward,

From a chicken going to roost.

I see the lights of the baker,

Gleam through the rain and mist,

And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me,

That I cannot well resist.

A feeling of sadness and longing

That is not like being sick,

And resembles sorrow only

As a brickbat resembles a brick.

Come, get for me some supper,—

A good and regular meal—

That shall soothe this restless feeling,

And banish the pain I feel.

Not from the pastry bakers,

Not from the shops for cake;

I wouldn't give a farthing

For all that they can make.

For, like the soup at dinner,

Such things would but suggest

Some dishes more substantial,

And to-night I want the best.

Go to some honest butcher,

Whose beef is fresh and nice,

As any they have in the city,

And get a liberal slice.

Such things through days of labor,

And nights devoid of ease,

For sad and desperate feelings,

Are wonderful remedies.

They have an astonishing power

To aid and reinforce,

And come like the "finally, brethren,"

That follows a long discourse.

Then get me a tender sirloin

From off the bench or hook.

And lend to its sterling goodness

The science of the cook.

And the night shall be filled with comfort,

And the cares with which it begun

Shall fold up their blankets like Indians,

And silently cut and run.

Phœbe Cary.

A PSALM OF LIFE

TELL me not, in idle jingle,

Marriage is an empty dream,

For the girl is dead that's single,

And things are not what they seem.

Married life is real, earnest,

Single blessedness a fib,

Taken from man, to man returnest,

Has been spoken of the rib.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

Is our destined end or way;

But to act, that each to-morrow

Nearer brings the wedding-day.

Life is long, and youth is fleeting,

And our hearts, if there we search,

Still like steady drums are beating

Anxious marches to the Church.

In the world's broad field of battle,

In the bivouac of life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle;

Be a woman, be a wife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!

Let the dead Past bury its dead!

Act—act in the living Present.

Heart within, and Man ahead!

Lives of married folks remind us

We can live our lives as well,

And, departing, leave behind us;—

Such examples as will tell;—

Such examples, that another,

Sailing far from Hymen's port,

A forlorn, unmarried brother,

Seeing, shall take heart, and court.

Let us then be up and doing,

With the heart and head begin;

Still achieving, still pursùing,

Learn to labor, and to win!

Phœbe Cary.

HOW OFTEN

THEY stood on the bridge at midnight,

In a park not far from the town;

They stood on the bridge at midnight,

Because they didn't sit down.

The moon rose o'er the city,

Behind the dark church spire;

The moon rose o'er the city

And kept on rising higher.

How often, oh, how often!

They whispered words so soft;

How often, oh, how often;

How often, oh, how oft!

Ben King.

DESOLATION

SOMEWHAT back from the village street

Stands the old fashioned country seat.

Across its antique portico

Tall poplar trees their shadows throw.

And there throughout the livelong day,

Jemima plays the pi-a-na.

Do, re, mi,

Mi, re, do.

In the front parlor there it stands,

And there Jemima plies her hands,

While her papa, beneath his cloak,

Mutters and groans: "This is no joke!"

And swears to himself and sighs, alas!

With sorrowful voice to all who pass.

Do, re, mi,

Mi, re, do.

Through days of death and days of birth

She plays as if she owned the earth.

Through every swift vicissitude

She drums as if it did her good,

And still she sits from morn till night

And plunks away with main and might

Do, re, mi,

Mi, re, do.

In that mansion used to be

Free-hearted hospitality;

But that was many years before

Jemima dallied with the score.

When she began her daily plunk,

Into their graves the neighbors sunk.

Do, re, mi,

Mi, re, do.

To other worlds they've long since fled,

All thankful that they're safely dead.

They stood the racket while alive

Until Jemima rose at five.

And then they laid their burdens down,

And one and all they skipped the town.

Do, re, mi,

Mi, re, do.

Tom Masson.

THE BIRDS AND THE PHEASANT

I   SHOT a partridge in the air,

It fell in turnips, "Don" knew where;

For just as it dropped, with my right

I stopped another in its flight.

I killed a pheasant in the copse,

It fell amongst the fir-tree tops;

For though a pheasant's flight is strong,

A cock, hard hit, cannot fly long.

Soon, soon afterwards, in a pie,

I found the birds in jelly lie;

And the pheasant at a fortnight's end,

I found again in the carte of a friend.

Punch.

AFTER WHITTIER

HIRAM HOVER

(A Ballad of New England life)

WHERE the Moosatockmaguntic

Pours its waters in the Skuntic,

Met, along the forest side

Hiram Hover, Huldah Hyde.

She, a maiden fair and dapper,

He, a red-haired, stalwart trapper,

Hunting beaver, mink, and skunk

In the woodlands of Squeedunk.

She, Pentucket's pensive daughter,

Walked beside the Skuntic water

Gathering, in her apron wet,

Snake-root, mint, and bouncing-bet.

"Why," he murmured, loth to leave her,

"Gather yarbs for chills and fever,

When a lovyer bold and true,

Only waits to gather you?"

"Go," she answered, "I'm not hasty,

I prefer a man more tasty;

Leastways, one to please me well

Should not have a beasty smell."

"Haughty Huldah!" Hiram answered,

"Mind and heart alike are cancered;

Jest look here! these peltries give

Cash, wherefrom a pair may live.

"I, you think, am but a vagrant,

Trapping beasts by no means fragrant;

Yet, I'm sure it's worth a thank—

I've a handsome sum in bank."

Turned and vanished Hiram Hover,

And, before the year was over,

Huldah, with the yarbs she sold,

Bought a cape, against the cold.

Black and thick the furry cape was,

Of a stylish cut the shape was;

And the girls, in all the town,

Envied Huldah up and down.

Then at last, one winter morning,

Hiram came without a warning.

"Either," said he, "you are blind,

Huldah, or you've changed your mind.

"Me you snub for trapping varmints,

Yet you take the skins for garments;

Since you wear the skunk and mink,

There's no harm in me, I think."

"Well," said she, "we will not quarrel,

Hiram; I accept the moral,

Now the fashion's so I guess

I can't hardly do no less."

Thus the trouble all was over

Of the love of Hiram Hover.

Thus he made sweet Huldah Hyde

Huldah Hover as his bride.

Love employs, with equal favor,

Things of good and evil savor;

That which first appeared to part,

Warmed, at last, the maiden's heart.

Under one impartial banner,

Life, the hunter, Love the tanner,

Draw, from every beast they snare,

Comfort for a wedded pair!

Bayard Taylor.

AFTER MRS. NORTON

THE HORSE AND HIS MASTER

(A panegyric)

My—anything but beautiful, that standest "knock-knee'd" by,

"Inverted arch" describes thy back, as "dismal" doth thine eye.

Fret not—go roam the commons now, limp there for want of speed;

I dare not mount on thee ('twere pain), thou bag of bones, indeed.

Fret not with that too patient hoof, puff not with wheezy wind;

The harder that thou roarest now the more we lag behind;

The stranger "had" thy master, brute, for twice ten pounds, all told;

I only wish he had thee back! Too late—I'm sold! I'm sold!

To-morrow's sun will dawn again, but ah! no ride for me.

Can I gallop over Rotten Row astride on such as thee?

'Tis evening now, and getting dark, and blowing up for rain;

I'll lead thee then, with slow, slow steps, to some "bait stables" plain.

(When a horse dealer cheats, with eyes of clap-trap truth and tears,

A hack's form for an instant like a thoroughbred's appears.)

And sitting down, I'll ponder well beside this water's brink,

Here—what's thy name? Come, Rosinante! Drink pretty (?) creature, drink!

Drink on, inflate thy skin. Away! this wretched farce is o'er;

I could not live a day and know that we must meet once more.

I've tempted thee, in vain (though Sanger's power be strong,

They could not tempt this beast to trot), oh, thou hast lived too long!

Who says that I'll give in? Come up! who says thou art not old?

Thy faults were faults, poor useless steed, I fear, when thou wert foal'd.

Thus, thus I whack upon thy back; go, scour with might and main

The asphalt! Ha! who stops thee now may have thee for his gain.

Philip F. Allen.

THE NEW VERSION

A   SOLDIER of the Russians

Lay japanned at Tschrtzvkjskivitch,

There was lack of woman's nursing

And other comforts which

Might add to his last moments

And smooth the final way;—

But a comrade stood beside him

To hear what he might say.

The japanned Russian faltered

As he took that comrade's hand,

And he said: "I never more shall see

My own, my native land;

Take a message and a token

To some distant friends of mine,

For I was born at Smnlxzrskgqrxzski,

Fair Smnlxzrskgqrxzski on the Irkztrvzkimnov."

W. J. Lampton.

AFTER POE

WHAT TROUBLED POE'S RAVEN

COULD Poe walk again to-morrow, heavy with dyspeptic sorrow,

While the darkness seemed to borrow darkness from the night before,

From the hollow gloom abysmal, floating downward, grimly dismal,

Like a pagan curse baptismal from the bust above the door,

He would hear the Raven croaking from the dusk above the door,

"Never, never, nevermore!"

And, too angry to be civil, "Raven," Poe would cry "or devil,

Tell me why you will persist in haunting Death's Plutonian shore?"

Then would croak the Raven gladly, "I will tell you why so sadly,

I so mournfully and madly, haunt you, taunt you, o'er and o'er,

Why eternally I haunt you, daunt you, taunt you, o'er and o'er—

Only this, and nothing more.

"Forty-eight long years I've pondered, forty-eight long years I've wondered,

How a poet ever blundered into a mistake so sore.

How could lamp-light from your table ever in the world be able,

From below, to throw my sable shadow 'streaming on the floor,'

When I perched up here on Pallas, high above your chamber-door?

Tell me that—if nothing more!"

Then, like some wan, weeping willow, Poe would bend above his pillow,

Seeking surcease in the billow where mad recollections drown,

And in tearful tones replying, he would groan "There's no denying

Either I was blindly lying, or the world was upside down—

Say, by Joe!—it was just midnight—so the world was upside down—

Aye, the world was upside down!"

John Bennett.

THE AMATEUR FLUTE

HEAR the fluter with his flute, Silver flute!

Oh, what a world of wailing is awakened by its toot!

How it demi-semi quavers

On the maddened air of night!

And defieth all endeavors

To escape the sound or sigh

Of the flute, flute, flute,

With its tootle, tootle, toot;

With reiterated tooteling of exasperating toots,

The long protracted tootelings of agonizing toots

Of the flute, flute, flute, flute,

Flute, flute, flute,

And the wheezings and the spittings of its toots.

Should he get that other flute,

Golden flute,

Oh, what a deeper anguish will his presence institoot!

How his eyes to heaven he'll raise,

As he plays,

All the days!

How he'll stop us on our ways

With its praise!

And the people—oh, the people,

That don't live up in the steeple,

But inhabit Christian parlors

Where he visiteth and plays,

Where he plays, plays, plays

In the cruellest of ways,

And thinks we ought to listen,

And expects us to be mute,

Who would rather have the earache

Than the music of his flute,

Of his flute, flute, flute,

And the tootings of his toot,

Of the toots wherewith he tooteleth its agonizing toot,

Of the flute, flewt, fluit, floot,

Phlute, phlewt, phlewght,

And the tootle, tootle, tooting of its toot.

Anonymous.

SAMUEL BROWN

IT was many and many a year ago,

In a dwelling down in town,

That a fellow there lived whom you may know,

By the name of Samuel Brown;

And this fellow he lived with no other thought

Than to our house to come down.

I was a child, and he was a child,

In that dwelling down in town,

But we loved with a love that was more than love,

I and my Samuel Brown,—

With a love that the ladies coveted,

Me and Samuel Brown.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

To that dwelling down in town,

A girl came out of her carriage, courting

My beautiful Samuel Brown;

So that her high-bred kinsmen came,

And bore away Samuel Brown,

And shut him up in a dwelling house,

In a street quite up in the town.

The ladies not half so happy up there,

Went envying me and Brown;

Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,

In this dwelling down in town),

That the girl came out of the carriage by night,

Coquetting and getting my Samuel Brown.

But our love is more artful by far than the love

Of those who are older than we,—

Of many far wiser than we,—

And neither the girls that are living above,

Nor the girls that are down in town,

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Samuel Brown.

For the morn never shines, without bringing me lines,

From my beautiful Samuel Brown;

And the night's never dark, but I sit in the park

With my beautiful Samuel Brown.

And often by day, I walk down in Broadway,

With my darling, my darling, my life and my stay,

To our dwelling down in town,

To our house in the street down town.

Phœbe Cary.

THE PROMISSORY NOTE

IN the lonesome latter years

(Fatal years!)

To the dropping of my tears

Danced the mad and mystic spheres

In a rounded, reeling rune,

'Neath the moon,

To the dripping and the dropping of my tears.

Ah, my soul is swathed in gloom,

(Ulalume!)

In a dim Titanic tomb,

For my gaunt and gloomy soul

Ponders o'er the penal scroll,

O'er the parchment (not a rhyme),

Out of place,—out of time,—

I am shredded, shorn, unshifty,

(Oh, the fifty!)

And the days have passed, the three,

Over me!

And the debit and the credit are as one to him and me!

'Twas the random runes I wrote

At the bottom of the note,

(Wrote and freely

Gave to Greeley)

In the middle of the night,

In the mellow, moonless night,

When the stars were out of sight,

When my pulses, like a knell,

(Israfel!)

Danced with dim and dying fays

O'er the ruins of my days,

O'er the dimeless, timeless days,

When the fifty, drawn at thirty,

Seeming thrifty, yet the dirty

Lucre of the market, was the most that I could raise!

Fiends controlled it,

(Let him hold it!)

Devils held for me the inkstand and the pen;

Now the days of grace are o'er,

(Ah, Lenore!)

I am but as other men;

What is time, time, time,

To my rare and runic rhyme,

To my random, reeling rhyme,

By the sands along the shore,

Where the tempest whispers, "Pay him!" and I answer, "Nevermore!"

Bayard Taylor.

THE CANNIBAL FLEA

IT was many and many a year ago

In a District called E. C.,

That a Monster dwelt whom I came to know

By the name of Cannibal Flea,

And the brute was possessed with no other thought

Than to live—and to live on me!

I was in bed, and he was in bed

In the District named E. C.,

When first in his thirst so accurst he burst

Upon me, the Cannibal Flea,

With a bite that felt as if some one had driven

A bayonet into me.

And this was the reason why long ago

In that District named E. C.

I tumbled out of my bed, willing

To capture the Cannibal Flea,

Who all the night until morning came

Kept boring into me!

It wore me down to a skeleton

In the District hight E. C.

From that hour I sought my bed—eleven—

Till daylight he tortured me.

Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know

In that District named E. C.)

I so often jumped out of my bed by night

Willing the killing of Cannibal Flea.

But his hops they were longer by far than the hops

Of creatures much larger than he—

Of parties more long-legged than he;

And neither the powder nor turpentine drops,

Nor the persons engaged by me,

Were so clever as ever to stop me the hop

Of the terrible Cannibal Flea.

For at night with a scream, I am waked from my dream

By the terrible Cannibal Flea;

And at morn I ne'er rise without bites—of such size!—

From the terrible Cannibal Flea.

So I'm forced to decide I'll no longer reside

In the District—the District—where he doth abide,

The locality known as E. C.

That is postally known as E. C.

Tom Hood, Jr.

ANNABEL LEE

'TWAS more than a million years ago,

Or so it seems to me,

That I used to prance around and beau

The beautiful Annabel Lee.

There were other girls in the neighborhood

But none was a patch to she.

And this was the reason that long ago,

My love fell out of a tree,

And busted herself on a cruel rock;

A solemn sight to see,

For it spoiled the hat and gown and looks

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

We loved with a love that was lovely love,

I and my Annabel Lee,

And we went one day to gather the nuts

That men call hickoree.

And I stayed below in the rosy glow

While she shinned up the tree,

But no sooner up than down kerslup

Came the beautiful Annabel Lee.

And the pallid moon and the hectic noon

Bring gleams of dreams for me,

Of the desolate and desperate fate

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

And I often think as I sink on the brink

Of slumber's sea, of the warm pink link

That bound my soul to Annabel Lee;

And it wasn't just best for her interest

To climb that hickory tree,

For had she stayed below with me,

We'd had no hickory nuts maybe,

But I should have had my Annabel Lee.

Stanley Huntley.

THE BELLS

HEAR a voice announcing IRVING in The Bells—sledge's bells!

What a scene of wild excitement the advertisement foretells!

See the rush upon the pay-hole—

People stand a night and day whole

To secure a little corner for The Bells!

To look ghastly pale and shudder, every man and "every brudder"

Feels that nothing can be equal to The Bells!

Bells! Bells! Bells! Bells!

Too horrified to cheer,

Folk will testify by fear

How appalled they are by IRVING in The Bells;

While great beads of perspiration will appear,

For in conscience-stricken terrors he excels!

Gloomy Bells!

Pit and gallery will glory in the weird and frightful story,

Which may even thrill the bosom of the swells,

For every Yankee "dude"

Unquestionably should

Have nightmare after witnessing The Bells!

Will our cousins all go frantic from Pacific to Atlantic, or condemn as childish antic

IRVING's dancing, and his gasping, and his yells!

There's a certain admiration which the strange impersonation

Still compels,

E'en from those who can't see beauty in The Bells—

In the play that MR. LEWIS calls The Bells!

Wondrous Bells!

You first made Henry famous, so the stage historian tells.

Will the scene be now repeated which in London always greeted

His performance of Mathias in The Bells?

Or will every sneering Yankee,

In his nasal tones, say "Thankee,

I guess this is just another of your mighty British 'sells'"?

Let the thought for ever perish, that the actor whom we cherish

Could fail to lick creation in The Bells!

But if there are detractors

Of this foremost of our actors,

Of the gentlemanly IRVING—friend of Toole's—

"They are neither man nor woman, they are neither brute nor human,"

They are fools!

Judy.

THE GOBLIN GOOSE

ONCE it happened I'd been dining, on my couch I slept reclining,

And awoke with moonlight shining brightly on my bedroom floor,

It was in the bleak December, Christmas night as I remember,

But I had no dying ember, as Poe had, when near the door,

Like a gastronomic goblin just beside my chamber door

Stood a bird,—and nothing more.

And I said, for I'm no craven, "Are you Edgar's famous raven,

Seeking as with him a haven—were you mixed up with Lenore?"

Then the bird uprose and fluttered, and this sentence strange he uttered,

"Hang Lenore," he mildly muttered; "you have seen me once before,

Seen me on this festive Christmas, seen me surely once before,

I'm the Goose—and nothing more."

Then he murmured, "Are you ready?" and with motion slow and steady,

Straight he leapt upon my bed; he simply gave a stifled roar;

And I cried, "As I'm a sinner, at a Goose-Club I was winner,

'Tis a memory of my dinner, which I ate at half-past four,

Goose well-stuffed with sage and onions, which I ate at half-past four."

Quoth he hoarsely, "Eat no more!"

Said I, "I've enjoyed your juices, breast and back; but tell me, Goose, is

This revenge, and what the use is of your being such a bore?

For Goose-flesh I will no more ax, if you'll not sit on my thorax,

Go try honey mixed with borax, for I hear your throat is sore,

You speak gruffly, though too plainly, and I'm sure your throat is sore."

Quoth the nightmare, "Eat no more!"

"Goose!" I shrieked out, "leave, oh, leave me, surely you don't mean to grieve me,

You are heavy, pray reprieve me, now my penance must be o'er;

Though to-night you've brought me sorrow, comfort surely comes to-morrow,

Some relief from those I'd borrow at my doctor's ample store."

Quoth the goblin, "Eat no more!"

And that fat Goose, never flitting, like a nightmare still is sitting

With me all the night emitting words that thrill my bosom's core,

Now throughout the Christmas season, while I lie and gasp and wheeze, on

Me he sits until my reason nothing surely can restore,

While that Goose says, "Eat no more!"

Punch.

AFTER LORD HOUGHTON

LOVE AND SCIENCE

(The Sphygmophon is an apparatus connected with the telephone, by the help of which the movements of the pulse and heart may be rendered audible)

I   WANDERED by the brookside,

I wandered by the mill;

The Sphygmophon was fixed there,

Its wires ran past the hill.

I heeded not the grasshopper,

Nor chirp of any bird,

For the beating of my own heart

Was all the sound I heard.

To test his apparatus,

One end I closely press'd,

The other at a distance,

I hoped was next his chest.

I listened for his footfall,

I listened for his word,

Still the bumping of my own heart

Was all the sound I heard.

He came not, no he came not,

The night came on alone;

And thinking he had tricked me,

I loosed the Sphygmophon.

The evening air passed by my cheek,

The leaves above were stirred,

When—the thumping of his own heart

Was all the sound I heard.

With joy I grasped the magnet,

When some one stood behind,

His hand was on my shoulder

(But that I did not mind).

Each spoke then—nearer—nearer,

We shouted every word;

But the booming of our own hearts

Was all the sound we heard.

Anonymous.

AFTER TENNYSON

THE BATHER'S DIRGE

BREAK, break, break,

On thy cold, hard stones, O sea!

And I hope that my tongue won't utter

The curses that rise in me.

Oh, well for the fisherman's boy,

If he likes to be soused with the spray!

Oh, well for the sailor lad,

As he paddles about in the bay!

And the ships swim happily on,

To their haven under the hill;

But O for a clutch of that vanished hand,

And a kick—for I'm catching a chill!

Break, break, break,

At my poor bare feet, O sea!

But the artful scamp who has collar'd my clothes

Will never come back to me.

Tennyson Minor.

LITTLE MISS MUFFET

(Reset as an Arthurian Idyl)

UPON a tuffet of most soft and verdant moss,

Beneath the spreading branches of an ancient oak,

Miss Muffet sat, and upward gazed,

To where a linnet perched and sung,

And rocked him gently, to and fro.

Soft blew the breeze

And mildly swayed the bough,

Loud sung the bird,

And sweetly dreamed the maid;

Dreamed brightly of the days to come—

The golden days, with her fair future blent.

When one—some wondrous stately knight—

Of our great Arthur's "Table Round;"

One, brave as Launcelot, and

Spotless as the pure Sir Galahad,

Should come, and coming, choose her

For his love, and in her name,

And for the sake of her fair eyes,

Should do most knightly deeds.

And as she dreamed and softly sighed,

She pensively began to stir,

With a tiny golden spoon

Within an antique dish upon her lap,

Some snow-white milky curds;

Soft were they, full of cream and rich,

And floated in translucent whey;

And as she stirred, she smiled,

Then gently tasted them.

And smiling, ate, nor sighed no more.

Lo! as she ate—nor harbored thought of ill—

Near and nearer yet, there to her crept,

A monster great and terrible,

With huge, misshapen body—leaden eyes—

Full many a long and hairy leg,

And soft and stealthy footstep.

Nearer still he came—Miss Muffet yet,

All unwitting his dread neighborhood,

Did eat her curds and dream.

Blithe, on the bough, the linnet sung—

All terrestrial natures, sleeping, wrapt

In a most sweet tranquillity.

Closer still the spider drew, and—

Paused beside her—lifted up his head

And gazed into her face.

Miss Muffet then, her consciousness alive

To his dread eyes upon her fixed,

Turned and beheld him.

Loud screamed she, frightened and amazed,

And straightway sprung upon her feet,

And, letting fall her dish and spoon,

She—shrieking—turned and fled.

Anonymous.

THE MUSICAL PITCH

BREAK, break, break,

O voice!—let me urge thy plea!

Oh, lower the Pitch, lest utter

Despair be the end of me!

'Tis well for the fiddles to squeak,

The bassoon to grunt in its play;

'Twere well had I lungs of brass,

Or that nothing but strings give way!

Break, break, break,

O voice! I must urge thy plea,

For the tender skin of my larynx is torn,

And I fail in my upper G!

Anonymous.

TO AN IMPORTUNATE HOST

(During dinner and after Tennyson)

ASK me no more: I've had enough Chablis;

The wine may come again and take the shape

From glass to glass of "Mountain" or of "Cape,"

But my dear boy, when I have answered thee,

Ask me no more.

Ask me no more: what answer should I give,

I love not pickled pork, nor partridge pie;

I feel if I took whiskey I should die!

Ask me no more—for I prefer to live:

Ask me no more.

Ask me no more: unless my fate is sealed,

And I have striven against you all in vain.

Let your good butler bring me "Hock" again;

Then rest, dear boy. If for this once I yield,

Ask me no more.

Anonymous.

THE VILLAGE CHOIR

HALF a bar, half a bar,

Half a bar onward!

Into an awful ditch

Choir and precentor hitch,

Into a mess of pitch,

They led the Old Hundred.

Trebles to right of them,

Tenors to left of them,

Basses in front of them,

Bellowed and thundered.

Oh, that precentor's look,

When the sopranos took

Their own time and hook

From the Old Hundred!

Screeched all the trebles here,

Boggled the tenors there,

Raising the parson's hair,

While his mind wandered;

Theirs not to reason why

This psalm was pitched too high:

Theirs but to gasp and cry

Out the Old Hundred.

Trebles to right of them,

Tenors to left of them,

Basses in front of them,

Bellowed and thundered.

Stormed they with shout and yell,

Not wise they sang nor well,

Drowning the sexton's bell,

While all the church wondered.

Dire the precentor's glare,

Flashed his pitchfork in air

Sounding fresh keys to bear

Out the Old Hundred.

Swiftly he turned his back,

Reached he his hat from rack,

Then from the screaming pack,

Himself he sundered.

Tenors to right of him,

Tenors to left of him,

Discords behind him,

Bellowed and thundered.

Oh, the wild howls they wrought:

Right to the end they fought!

Some tune they sang, but not,

Not the Old Hundred.

Anonymous.

THE BITER BIT

THE sun is in the sky, mother, the flowers are springing fair;

And the melody of woodland birds is stirring in the air;

The river, smiling to the sky, glides onward to the sea,

And happiness is everywhere, oh, mother, but with me!

They are going to the church, mother—I hear the marriage bell

It booms along the upland—Oh! it haunts me like a knell;

He leads her on his arm, mother, he cheers her faltering step,

And closely to his side she clings—she does, the demirep!

They are crossing by the stile, mother, where we so oft have stood,

The stile beside the shady thorn, at the corner of the wood;

And the boughs, that wont to murmur back the words that won my ear,

Wave their silver branches o'er him, as he leads his bridal fere.

He will pass beside the stream, mother, where first my hand he pressed,

By the meadow where, with quivering lip, his passion he confessed;

And down the hedgerows where we've strayed again and yet again;

But he will not think of me, mother, his broken-hearted Jane!

He said that I was proud, mother, that I looked for rank and gold,

He said I did not love him—he said my words were cold;

He said I kept him off and on, in hopes of higher game—

And it may be that I did, mother; who hasn't done the same?

I did not know my heart, mother—I know it now too late;

I thought that I without a pang could wed some nobler mate;

But no nobler suitor sought me—and he has taken wing,

And my heart is gone, and I am left a lone and blighted thing.

You may lay me in my bed, mother—my head is throbbing sore;

And, mother, prithee, let the sheets be duly aired before;

And, if you'd please, my mother dear, your poor desponding child,

Draw me a pot of beer, mother, and mother, draw it mild!

William Aytoun.

THE LAUREATE

WHO would not be

The Laureate bold,

With his butt of sherry

To keep him merry,

And nothing to do but to pocket his gold?

'Tis I would be the Laureate bold!

When the days are hot, and the sun is strong,

I'd lounge in the gateway all the day long

With her Majesty's footmen in crimson and gold.

I'd care not a pin for the waiting-lord,

But I'd lie on my back on the smooth greensward

With a straw in my mouth, and an open vest,

And the cool wind blowing upon my breast,

And I'd vacantly stare at the clear blue sky,

And watch the clouds that are listless as I,

Lazily, lazily!

And I'd pick the moss and the daisies white,

And chew their stalks with a nibbling bite;

And I'd let my fancies roam abroad

In search of a hint for a birthday ode,

Crazily, crazily!

Oh, that would be the life for me,

With plenty to get and nothing to do,

But to deck a pet poodle with ribbons of blue,

And whistle all day to the Queen's cockatoo,

Trance-somely, trance-somely!

Then the chambermaids, that clean the rooms,

Would come to the windows and rest on their brooms,

With their saucy caps and their crispéd hair,

And they'd toss their heads in the fragrant air,

And say to each other—"Just look down there,

At the nice young man, so tidy and small,

Who is paid for writing on nothing at all,

Handsomely, handsomely!"

They would pelt me with matches and sweet pastilles,

And crumpled-up balls of the royal bills,

Giggling and laughing, and screaming with fun,

As they'd see me start, with a leap and a run,

From the broad of my back to the points of my toes,

When a pellet of paper hit my nose,

Teasingly, sneezingly!

Then I'd fling them bunches of garden flowers,

And hyacinths plucked from the Castle bowers;

And I'd challenge them all to come down to me,

And I'd kiss them all till they kissed me,

Laughingly, laughingly.

Oh, would not that be a merry life,

Apart from care and apart from strife,

With the Laureate's wine, and the Laureate's pay,

And no deductions at quarter-day?

Oh, that would be the post for me!

With plenty to get and nothing to do,

But to deck a pet poodle with ribbons of blue,

And whistle a tune to the Queen's cockatoo,

And scribble of verses remarkably few,

And empty at evening a bottle or two,

Quaffingly, quaffingly!

'Tis I would be

The Laureate bold,

With my butt of sherry

To keep me merry,

And nothing to do but to pocket my gold!

William Aytoun.

THE LAY OF THE LOVELORN

COMRADES, you may pass the rosy. With permission of the chair,

I shall leave you for a little, for I'd like to take the air.

Whether 'twas the sauce at dinner, or that glass of ginger-beer,

Or these strong cheroots, I know not, but I feel a little queer.

Let me go. Nay, Chuckster, blow me, 'pon my soul, this is too bad!

When you want me, ask the waiter; he knows where I'm to be had.

Whew! This is a great relief now! Let me but undo my stock;

Resting here beneath the porch, my nerves will steady like a rock.

In my ears I hear the singing of a lot of favourite tunes—

Bless my heart, how very odd! Why surely there's a brace of moons!

See! the stars! how bright they twinkle, winking with a frosty glare,

Like my faithless cousin Amy when she drove me to despair.

Oh, my cousin, spider-hearted! Oh, my Amy! No, confound it,

I must wear the mournful willow,—all around my heart I've bound it!

Falser than the bank of fancy, frailer than a shining glove,

Puppet to a father's anger, minion to a nabob's love!

Is it well to wish thee happy? Having known me, could you ever

Stoop to marry half a heart, and a little more than half a liver?

Happy! Damme! Thou shalt lower to his level day by day,

Changing from the best of china to the commonest of clay.

As the husband is, the wife is,—he is stomach-plagued and old;

And his curry soups will make thy cheek the color of his gold.

When his feeble love is sated, he will hold thee surely then

Something lower than his hookah,—something less than his cayenne.

What is this? His eyes are pinky. Was 't the claret? Oh, no, no,—

Bless your soul! it was the salmon,—salmon always makes him so.

Take him to thy dainty chamber—soothe him with thy lightest fancies;

He will understand thee, won't he?—pay thee with a lover's glances?

Louder than the loudest trumpet, harsh as harshest ophicleide,

Nasal respirations answer the endearments of his bride.

Sweet repose, delightful music! Gaze upon thy noble charge,

Till the spirit fill thy bosom that inspired the meek Laffarge.

Better thou wert dead before me,—better, better that I stood,

Looking on thy murdered body, like the injured Daniel Good!

Better thou and I were lying, cold and timber-stiff and dead,

With a pan of burning charcoal underneath our nuptial bed!

Cursed be the Bank of England's notes, that tempt the soul to sin!

Cursed be the wants of acres,—doubly cursed the want of tin!

Cursed be the marriage-contract, that enslaved thy soul to greed!

Cursed be the sallow lawyer that prepared and drew the deed!

Cursed be his foul apprentice, who the loathsome fees did earn!

Cursed be the clerk and parson,—cursed be the whole concern!

Oh, 'tis well that I should bluster,—much I'm like to make of that;

Better comfort have I found in singing "All Around my Hat."

But that song, so wildly plaintive, palls upon my British ears.

'Twill not do to pine for ever,—I am getting up in years.

Can't I turn the honest penny, scribbling for the weekly press,

And in writing Sunday libels drown my private wretchedness?

Oh, to feel the wild pulsation that in manhood's dawn I knew,

When my days were all before me, and my years were twenty-two!

When I smoked my independent pipe along the Quadrant wide,

With the many larks of London flaring up on every side;

When I went the pace so wildly, caring little what might come;

Coffee-milling care and sorrow with a nose-adapted thumb;

Felt the exquisite enjoyment, tossing nightly off, oh, heavens!

Brandies at the Cider Cellars, kidneys smoking hot at Evans'!

Or in the Adelphi sitting, half in rapture, half in tears,

Saw the glorious melodrama conjure up the shades of years!

Saw Jack Sheppard, noble stripling, act his wondrous feats again,

Snapping Newgate's bars of iron, like an infant's daisy chain.

Might was right, and all the terrors, which had held the world in awe,

Were despised, and priggings prospered, spite of Laurie, spite of law.

In such scenes as these I triumphed, ere my passion's edge was rusted,

And my cousin's cold refusal left me very much disgusted!

Since, my heart is sere and withered, and I do not care a curse

Whether worse shall be the better, or the better be the worse.

Hark! my merry comrades call me, bawling for another jorum;

They would mock me in derision, should I thus appear before 'em.

Womankind shall no more vex me, such at least as go arrayed

In the most expensive satins and the newest silk brocade.

I'll to Afric, lion-haunted, where the giant forest yields

Rarer robes and finer tissue than are sold at Spitalfields.

Or to burst all chains of habit, flinging habit's self aside

I shall walk the tangled jungle in mankind's primeval pride;

Feeding on the luscious berries and the rich cassava root,

Lots of dates and lots of guavas, clusters of forbidden fruit.

Never comes the trader thither, never o'er the purple main

Sounds the oath of British commerce, or the accent of Cockaigne.

There, methinks, would be enjoyment, where no envious rule prevents;

Sink the Steamboats! cuss the railways! rot, oh, rot the Three per Cents!

There the passions, cramped no longer, shall have space to breathe, my cousin!

I will wed some savage woman—nay, I'll wed at least a dozen.

There I'll rear my young mulattoes, as no Bond Street brats are reared;

They shall dive for alligators, catch the wild goats by the beard—

Whistle to the cockatoos, and mock the hairy-faced baboon,

Worship mighty Mumbo Jumbo in the Mountains of the Moon.

I myself, in far Timbuctoo, leopard's blood will daily quaff,

Ride a tiger-hunting, mounted on a thorough-bred giraffe.

Fiercely shall I shout the war-whoop, as some sullen stream he crosses,

Startling from their noonday slumbers iron-bound rhinoceroses.

Fool! again the dream, the fancy! But I know my words are mad,

For I hold the gray barbarian lower than the Christian cad.

I the swell—the city dandy! I to seek such horrid places,—

I to haunt with squalid negroes, blubber-lips, and monkey-faces.

I to wed with Coromantees! I, who managed—very near—

To secure the heart and fortune of the widow Shillibeer!

Stuff and nonsense! let me never fling a single chance away;

Maids ere now, I know, have loved me, and another maiden may.

Morning Post (The Times won't trust me) help me, as I know you can;

I will pen an advertisement,—that's a never failing plan.

"Wanted—by a bard, in wedlock, some young interesting woman;

Looks are not so much an object, if the shiners be forthcoming!

"Hymen's chains the advertiser vows shall be but silken fetters;

Please address to A. T., Chelsea. N. B.—You must pay the letters."

That's the sort of thing to do it. Now I'll go and taste the balmy,—

Rest thee with thy yellow nabob, spider-hearted Cousin Amy!

William Aytoun.

IN IMMEMORIAM

WE seek to know, and knowing seek;

We seek, we know, and every sense

Is trembling with the great Intense

And vibrating to what we speak.

We ask too much, we seek too oft,

We know enough, and should no more;

And yet we skim through Fancy's lore

And look to earth and not aloft.

A something comes from out the gloom;

I know it not, nor seek to know;

I only see it swell and grow,

And more than this world would presume.

Meseems, a circling void I fill,

And I, unchanged where all is changed;

It seems unreal; I own it strange,

Yet nurse the thoughts I cannot kill.

I hear the ocean's surging tide,

Raise quiring on its carol-tune;

I watch the golden-sickled moon,

And clearer voices call besides.

O Sea! whose ancient ripples lie

On red-ribbed sands where seaweeds shone;

O Moon! whose golden sickle's gone;

O Voices all! like ye I die!

Cuthbert Bede.

SIR EGGNOGG

FORTH from the purple battlements he fared,

Sir Eggnogg of the Rampant Lily, named

From that embrasure of his argent shield

Given by a thousand leagues of heraldry

On snuffy parchments drawn. So forth he fared,

By bosky boles and autumn leaves he fared,

Where grew the juniper with berries black,

The sphery mansions of the future gin.

But naught of this decoyed his mind, so bent

On fair Miasma, Saxon-blooded girl,

Who laughed his loving lullabies to scorn,

And would have snatched his hero-sword to deck

Her haughty brow, or warm her hands withal,

So scornful she; and thence Sir Eggnogg cursed

Between his teeth, and chewed his iron boots

In spleen of love. But ere the morn was high

In the robustious heaven, the postern-tower

Clang to the harsh, discordant, slivering scream

Of the tire-woman, at the window bent

To dress her crispéd hair. She saw, ah, woe!

The fair Miasma, overbalanced, hurled

O'er the flamboyant parapet which ridged

The muffled coping of the castle's peak,

Prone on the ivory pavement of the court,

Which caught and cleft her fairest skull, and sent

Her rosy brains to fleck the Orient floor.

This saw Sir Eggnogg, in his stirrups poised.

Saw he and cursed, with many a deep-mouthed oath,

And, finding nothing more could reunite

The splintered form of fair Miasma, rode

On his careering palfrey to the wars,

And there found death, another death than hers.

Bayard Taylor.

GODIVA

"I   WAITED for the Train at Coventry,"

The Train was several hundred years too late

(It had not been invented yet, you see);

Such is the Cold Cast Irony of Fate.

At last the Train arrived, and with it too

Your Book—a Precious Package marked "collect."

Raptured I read it through and through, and through,

And then I paused in sadness to reflect—

How that same Book had been a priceless boon,

But for a little accident of Date;

If only I had not been born so soon,

Or if you had not gone to press so late.

O Book, if only you had come to me

Ere I rode forth upon that morning sad!

In naught but Faith and Hope and Charity,

And other Vague Abstractions thinly clad;

In whole Editions I would have invested

(I hope you get good Royalties therefrom),

To keep the naughty townfolk interested

And most Particularly, Peeping Tom.

Oliver Herford.

A LAUREATE'S LOG

(Rough-weather notes from the New Birthday-Book)

MONDAY

IF you're waking, please don't call me, please don't call me, Currie dear,

For they tell me that to-morrow toward the open we're to steer!

No doubt, for you and those aloft, the maddest merriest way,—

But I always feel best in a bay, Currie,

I always feel best in a bay.

TUESDAY

Take, take, take?

What will I take for tea?

The thinnest slice—no butter,

And that's quite enough for me.

WEDNESDAY

It is the little roll within the berth

That, by and by, will put an end to mirth,

And, never ceasing, slowly prostrate all.

THURSDAY

Let me alone! What pleasure can you have

In chaffing evil? Tell me what's the fun

Of ever climbing up the climbing wave?

All you, the rest, you know how to behave

In roughish weather! I, for one

Ask for the shore—or death, dark death,—

I am so done.

FRIDAY

Twelve knots an hour! But what am I?

A poet with no land in sight,

Insisting that he feels "all right,"

With half a smile and half a sigh.

SATURDAY

Comfort? Comfort scorned of lubbers! Hear this truth the Poet roar,

That a sorrow's crown of sorrows is remembering days on shore.

Drug his soda lest he learn it when the foreland gleams a speck

In the dead unhappy night, when he can't sit up on deck!

SUNDAY

Ah! you've called me nice and early, nice and early, Currie dear!

What? Really in? Well, come, the news I'm precious glad to hear;

For though in such good company I willingly would stay—

I'm glad to be back in the bay, Currie,

I'm glad to be back in the bay.

Punch.

THE RECOGNITION

HOME they brought her sailor son,

Grown a man across the sea,

Tall and broad and black of beard,

And hoarse of voice as man may be.

Hand to shake and mouth to kiss,

Both he offered ere he spoke;

But she said—"What man is this

Comes to play a sorry joke?"

Then they praised him—call'd him "smart,"

"Tightest lad that ever stept;"

But her son she did not know,

And she neither smiled nor wept.

Rose, a nurse of ninety years,

Set a pigeon-pie in sight;

She saw him eat—"'Tis he! 'tis he!"

She knew him—by his appetite!

William Sawyer.

THE HIGHER PANTHEISM IN A

NUTSHELL

ONE, who is not, we see; but one, whom we see not, is;

Surely this is not that: but that is assuredly this.

What, and wherefore, and whence? for under is over and under;

If thunder could be without lightning, lightning could be without thunder.

Doubt is faith in the main: but faith, on the whole, is doubt;

We cannot believe by proof: but could we believe without?

Why, and whither, and how? for barley and rye are not clover;

Neither are straight lines curves: yet over is under and over.

Two and two may be four: but four and four are not eight;

Fate and God may be twain: but God is the same thing as fate.

Ask a man what he thinks, and get from a man what he feels;

God, once caught in the fact, shews you a fair pair of heels.

Body and spirit are twins: God only knows which is which;

The soul squats down in the flesh, like a tinker drunk in a ditch.

One and two are not one: but one and nothing is two;

Truth can hardly be false, if falsehood cannot be true.

Once the mastodon was: pterodactyls were common as cocks;

Then the mammoth was God: now is He a prize ox.

Parallels all things are: yet many of these are askew.

You are certainly I: but certainly I am not you.

Springs the rock from the plain, shoots the stream from the rock;

Cocks exist for the hen: but hens exist for the cock.

God, whom we see not, is: and God, who is not, we see;

Fiddle, we know, is diddle: and diddle, we take it, is dee.

Algernon Charles Swinburne.

TIMBUCTOO.—PART I.

The situation.

1

IN Africa (a Quarter of the World),

Men's skins are black, their hair is crisp and curl'd,

And somewhere there, unknown to public view,

A mighty city lies, called Timbuctoo.

The natural history.

5

There stalks the tiger,—there the lion roars,

Who sometimes eats the luckless blackamoors;

All that he leaves of them the monster throws

To jackals, vultures, dogs, cats, kites, and crows;

His hunger thus the forest monster gluts,

10

And then lies down 'neath trees called cocoa-nuts.

The lion hunt.

Quick issue out, with musket, torch, and brand,

The sturdy blackamoors, a dusky band!

The beast is found—pop goes the musketoons—

The lion falls covered with horrid wounds.

Their lives at home.

15

At home their lives in pleasure always flow,

But many have a different lot to know!

Abroad.

They're often caught and sold as slaves, alas!

Reflections on the foregoing.

Thus men from highest joy to sorrow pass;

Yet though thy monarch and thy nobles boil

20

Rack and molasses in Jamaica's isle,

Desolate Africa! thou art lovely yet!

One heart yet beats which ne'er thee shall forget.

What though thy maidens are a blackish brown,

Does virtue dwell in whiter breasts alone?

25

Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no!

It shall not, must not, cannot, e'er be so.

The day shall come when Albion's self shall feel

Stern Afric's wrath, and writhe 'neath Afric's steel.

I see her tribes the hill of glory mount,

30

And sell their sugars on their own account;

While round her throne the prostrate nations come,

Sue for her rice, and barter for her rum!

Notes.—Lines 1 and 2.—See Guthrie's Geography. The site of Timbuctoo is doubtful; the author has neatly expressed this in the poem, at the same time giving us some slight hints relative to its situation.

Line 5.—So Horace: leonum arida nutrix.

Line 13.—"Pop goes the musketoons." A learned friend suggested "Bang" as a stronger expression, but as African gunpowder is notoriously bad, the author thought "Pop" the better word.

Lines 15-18.—A concise but affecting description is here given of the domestic habits of the people. The infamous manner in which they are entrapped and sold as slaves is described, and the whole ends with an appropriate moral sentiment. The enthusiasm the author feels is beautifully expressed in lines 25 and 26.

W. M. Thackeray.

AFTER TUPPER

OF FRIENDSHIP

CHOOSE judiciously thy friends; for to discard them is undesirable,

Yet it is better to drop thy friends, O my daughter, than to drop thy H's.

Dost thou know a wise woman? yea, wiser than the children of light?

Hath she a position? and a title? and are her parties in the Morning Post?

If thou dost, cleave unto her, and give up unto her thy body and mind;

Think with her ideas, and distribute thy smiles at her bidding:

So shalt thou become like unto her; and thy manners shall be "formed,"

And thy name shall be a Sesame, at which the doors of the great shall fly open:

Thou shalt know every Peer, his arms, and the date of his creation,

His pedigree and their intermarriages, and cousins to the sixth remove:

Thou shalt kiss the hand of Royalty, and lo! in next morning's papers,

Side by side with rumors of wars, and stories of shipwrecks and sieges,

Shall appear thy name, and the minutiæ of thy head-dress and petticoat,

For an enraptured public to muse upon over their matutinal muffin.

Charles S. Calverley.

OF READING

READ not Milton, for he is dry; nor Shakespeare, for he wrote of common life;

Nor Scott, for his romances, though fascinating, are yet intelligible;

Nor Thackeray, for he is a Hogarth, a photographer who flattereth not;

Nor Kingsley, for he shall teach thee that thou shouldest not dream, but do.

Read incessantly thy Burke; that Burke who, nobler than he of old,

Treateth of the Peer and Peeress, the truly Sublime and Beautiful;

Likewise study the "creations" of "the Prince of modern Romance;"

Sigh over Leonard the Martyr, and smile on Pelham the puppy;

Learn how "love is the dram-drinking of existence;"

And how we "invoke, in the Gadara of our still closets,

The beautiful ghost of the Ideal, with the simple wand of the pen."

Listen how Maltravers and the orphan "forgot all but love,"

And how Devereux's family chaplain "made and unmade kings;"

How Eugene Aram, though a thief, a liar, and a murderer,

Yet, being intellectual, was amongst the noblest of mankind;

So shalt thou live in a world peopled with heroes and master spirits

And if thou canst not realize the Ideal, thou shalt at least idealize the Real.

Charles S. Calverley.

AFTER THACKERAY

THE WILLOW-TREE

(Another version)

LONG by the willow-trees

Vainly they sought her,

Wild rang the mother's screams

O'er the gray water:

"Where is my lovely one?

Where is my daughter?

"Rouse thee, Sir Constable—

Rouse thee and look;

Fisherman, bring your net,

Boatman, your hook.

Beat in the lily-beds,

Dive in the brook!"

Vainly the constable

Shouted and called her;

Vainly the fisherman

Beat the green alder;

Vainly he flung the net,

Never it hauled her!

Mother beside the fire

Sat, her nightcap in;

Father, in easy chair,

Gloomily napping,

When at the window-sill

Came a light tapping!

And a pale countenance

Looked through the casement,

Loud beat the mother's heart,

Sick with amazement,

And at the vision which

Came to surprise her,

Shrieked in an agony—

"Lor'! it's Elizar!"

Yes, 'twas Elizabeth—

Yes, 'twas their girl;

Pale was her cheek, and her

Hair out of curl.

"Mother," the loving one,

Blushing exclaimed,

"Let not your innocent

Lizzy be blamed.

"Yesterday, going to Aunt

Jones's to tea,

Mother, dear mother, I

Forgot the door-key!

And as the night was cold

And the way steep,

Mrs. Jones kept me to

Breakfast and sleep."

Whether her Pa and Ma

Fully believed her,

That we shall never know,

Stern they received her;

And for the work of that

Cruel, though short, night

Sent her to bed without

Tea for a fortnight.

MORAL

Hey diddle diddlety,

Cat and the fiddlety,

Maidens of England, take caution by she!

Let love and suicide

Never tempt you aside,

And always remember to take the door-key.

W. M. Thackeray.

AFTER CHARLES DICKENS

MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE

(Dedicated to Darwin and Huxley)

THEY told him gently he was made

Of nicely tempered mud,

That man no lengthened part had played

Anterior to the Flood.

'Twas all in vain; he heeded not,

Referring plant and worm,

Fish, reptile, ape, and Hottentot,

To one primordial germ.

They asked him whether he could bear

To think his kind allied

To all those brutal forms which were

In structure Pithecoid;

Whether he thought the apes and us

Homologous in form;

He said, "Homo and Pithecus

Came from one common germ."

They called him "atheistical,"

"Sceptic," and "infidel."

They swore his doctrines without fail

Would plunge him into hell.

But he with proofs in no way lame.

Made this deduction firm,

That all organic beings came

From one primordial germ.

That as for the Noachian flood,

'Twas long ago disproved,

That as for man being made of mud,

All by whom truth is loved

Accept as fact what, malgré strife,

Research tends to confirm—

That man, and everything with life,

Came from one common germ.

Anonymous.

AFTER ROBERT BROWNING

HOME TRUTHS FROM ABROAD

I

"OH! to be in England

Now that April's there.

And whoever wakes in England

Sees some morning" in despair;

There's a horrible fog i' the heart o' the town,

And the greasy pavement is damp and brown,

While the rain-drop falls from the laden bough

In England——now!

II

"And after April when May follows,"

How foolish seem the returning swallows.

Hark! how the east wind sweeps along the street,

And how we give one universal sneeze!

The hapless lambs at thought of mint-sauce bleat,

And ducks are conscious of the coming peas.

Lest you should think the Spring is really present,

A biting frost will come to make things pleasant;

And though the reckless flowers begin to blow,

They'd better far have nestled down below;

An English Spring sets men and women frowning,

Despite the rhapsodies of Robert Browning.

Anonymous.

AFTER BROWNING

NOT that I care for ceremonies—no;

But still there are occasions, as you see

(Observe the costumes—gallantly they show

To my poor judgment!) which, twixt you and me,

Not to come forth, one's few remaining hairs,

Or wig,—it matters little,—bravely brushed

And oiled, dress-coated, sprucely-clad, the tears

And tweaks and wrenches, people overflushed

With—well, not wine—oh, no, we'll rather say

Anticipation, the delight of seeing

No matter what! inflict upon you (pray

Remove your elbow, friend!) in spite of being

Not quite the man one used to be, and not

So young as once one was, would argue one

Churlish, indifferent, hipped, rheumatic, what

You please to say.

So, not to spoil the fun—

Comprenez-vous?—observe that lady there,

In native worth! Aha! you see the jest?

Not bad, I think. My own, too! Woman's fair.

Or not—the odds so long as she is dressed?

They're coming! Soh! Ha, Bennett's Barcarole—

A poor thing, but mine own! That minor third

Is not so bad now! Mum, sirs! (Bless my soul,

I wonder what her veil cost!) Mum's the word!

Anonymous.

THE COCK AND THE BULL

YOU see this pebble-stone? It's a thing I bought

Off a bit of a chit of a boy i' the mid o' the day.

I like to dock the smaller parts o' speech,

As we curtail the already cur-tail'd cur—

(You catch the paronomasia, play 'po' words?)

Did, rather, i' the pre-Landseerian days.

Well, to my muttons. I purchased the concern,

And clapt it i' my poke, having given for same

By way o' chop, swop, barter or exchange—

"Chop" was my snickering dandiprat's own term—

One shilling and fourpence, current coin o' the realm.

O-n-e one, and f-o-u-r four

Pence, one and fourpence—you are with me, sir?—

What hour it skills not: ten or eleven o' the clock,

One day (and what a roaring day it was

Go shop or sight-see—bar a spit o' rain!)

In February, eighteen sixty-nine,

Alexandria Victoria, Fidei—

Hm—hm—how runs the jargon? being on the throne.

Such, sir, are all the facts, succinctly put,

The basis or substratum—what you will will—

Of the impending eighty thousand lines.

"Not much in 'em either," quoth perhaps simple Hodge.

But there's a superstructure. Wait a bit.

Mark first the rationale of the thing:

Hear logic rivel and levigate the deed.

That shilling—and for matter o' that, the pence—

I had o' course upo' me—wi' me say—

(Mecum's the Latin, make a note o' that)

When I popp'd pen i' stand, scratch'd ear, wiped snout,

(Let everybody wipe his own himself)

Sniff'd—tch!—at snuff-box; tumbled up, ne-heed,

Haw-haw'd (not hee-haw'd, that's another guess thing),

Then fumbled at, and stumbled out of, door.

I shoved the timber ope wi' my omoplat;

And in vestibulo, i' the lobby to wit

(Iacobi Facciolati's rendering, sir),

Donn'd galligaskins, antigropeloes,

And so forth; and, complete with hat and gloves,

One on and one a-dangle i' my hand,

And ombrifuge (Lord love you!), case o' rain,

I flopp'd forth, 'sbuddikins! on my own ten toes

(I do assure you there be ten of them),

And went clump-clumping up hill and down dale

To find myself o' the sudden i' front o' the boy.

But case I hadn't 'em on me, could I ha' bought

This sort-o'-kind-o'-what-you-might-call toy,

This pebble thing, o' the boy-thing? Q. E. D.

That's proven without aid from mumping Pope,

Sleek porporate or bloated Cardinal.

(Isn't it, old Fatchaps? You're in Euclid now.)

So, having the shilling—having i' fact a lot—

And pence and halfpence, ever so many o' them,

I purchased, as I think I said before,

The pebble (lapis, lapidis, -di, -dem, -de—

What nouns 'crease short i' the genitive, Fatchaps, eh?)

O' the boy, a bare-legg'd beggarly son of a gun,

for one and fourpence. Here we are again.

Now Law steps in, bigwigg'd, voluminous-jaw'd;

Investigates and re-investigates.

Was the transaction illegal? Law shakes head

Perpend, sir, all the bearings of the case.

At first the coin was mine, the chattel his.

But now (by virtue of the said exchange

And barter) vice versa all the coin,

Per juris operationem, vests

I' the boy and his assigns till ding o' doom;

(In sæcula sæculo-o-o-rum;

I think I hear the Abate mouth out that.)

To have and hold the same to him and them.

Confer some idiot on Conveyancing.

Whereas the pebble and every part thereof,

And all that appertaineth thereunto,

Quodcunque pertinet ad eam rem

(I fancy, sir, my Latin's rather pat),

Or shall, will, may, might, can, could, would or should

(Subaudi cætera—clap we to the close—

For what's the good of Law in a case o' the kind),

Is mine to all intents and purposes.

This settled, I resume the thread o' the tale.

Now for a touch o' the vendor's quality.

He says a gen'lman bought a pebble of him

(This pebble i' sooth, sir, which I hold i' my hand),

And paid for't, like a gen'lman, on the nail.

"Did I o'ercharge him a ha'penny? Devil a bit.

Fiddlepin's end! Get out, you blazing ass!

Gabble o' the goose. Don't bugaboo-baby me!

Go double or quits? Yah! tittup! what's the odds?"

There's the transaction view'd i' the vendor's light.

Next ask that dumpled hag, stood snuffling by,

With her three frowsy blowsy brats o' babes,

The scum o' the kennel, cream o' the filth-heap—Faugh!

Aie, aie, aie, aie! οτοτοτοτοτοἱ

('Stead which we blurt out Hoighty toighty now),

And the baker and candlestickmaker, and Jack and Jill,

Blear'd Goody this and queasy Gaffer that.

Ask the schoolmaster. Take schoolmaster first.

He saw a gentleman purchase of a lad

A stone, and pay for it rite, on the square,

And carry it off per saltum, jauntily,

Propria quae maribus, gentleman's property now

(Agreeably to the law explain'd above),

In proprium usum, for his private ends,

The boy he chuck'd a brown i' the air, and bit

I' the face the shilling; heaved a thumping stone

At a lean hen that ran cluck clucking by

(And hit her, dead as nail i' post o' door),

Then abiit—what's the Ciceronian phrase?—

Excessit, evasit, erupit—off slogs boy;

Off like bird, avi similis—(you observed

The dative? Pretty i' the Mantuan!)—Anglice

Off in three flea skips. Hactenus, so far,

So good, tam bene. Bene, satis, male,—

Where was I with my trope 'bout one in a quag?

I did once hitch the syntax into verse:

Verbum personale, a verb personal,

Concordat—ay, "agrees," old Fatchaps—cum

Nominativo, with its nominative,

Genere, i' point o' gender, numero,

O' number, et persona, and person. Ut,

Instance: Sol ruit, down flops sun, et, and,

Montes umbrantur, out flounce mountains. Pah!

Excuse me, sir, I think I'm going mad.

You see the trick on't though, and can yourself

Continue the discourse ad libitum.

It takes up about eighty thousand lines,

A thing imagination boggles at;

And might, odds-bobs, sir! in judicious hands,

Extend from here to Mesopotamy.

Charles S. Calverley.

A STACCATO TO O LE LUPE

O   LE LUPE, Gelett Burgess, this is very sad to find;

In the Bookman for September, in a manner most unkind,

There appears a half-page picture, makes me think

I've lost my mind.

They have reproduced a window,—Doxey's window (I dare say

In your rambles you have seen it, passed it twenty times a day),—

As "A Novel Exhibition of Examples of Decay."

There is Nordau we all sneer at, and Verlaine we all adore,

And a little book of verses with its betters by the score,

With three faces on the cover I believe I've seen before.

Well, here's matter for reflection, makes me wonder where I am.

Here is Ibsen the gray lion, linked to Beardsley the black lamb.

I was never out of Boston; all that I can say is, "Damn!"

Who could think, in two short summers we should cause so much remark,

With no purpose but our pastime, and to make the public hark,

When I soloed on THE CHAP-BOOK, and you answered with THE LARK!

Do young people take much pleasure when they read that sort of thing?

"Well, they buy it," answered Doxey, "and I take what it will bring.

Publishers may dread extinction—not with such fads on the string.

"There is always sale for something, and demand for what is new.

These young people who are restless, and have nothing else to do,

Like to think there is 'a movement,' just to keep themselves in view.

"There is nothing in Decadence but the magic of a name.

People talk and papers drivel, scent a vice, and hint a shame;

And all that is good for business, helps to boom my little game."

But when I sit down to reason, think to stand upon my nerve,

Meditate on portly leisure with a balance in reserve,

In he comes with his "Decadence!" like a fly in my preserve.

I can see myself, O Burgess, half a century from now,

Laid to rest among the ghostly, like a broken toy somehow;

All my lovely songs and ballads vanished with your "Purple Cow."

But I will return some morning, though I know it will be hard,

To Cornhill among the bookstalls, and surprise some minor bard;

Turning over their old rubbish for the treasures we discard.

I shall warn him like a critic, creeping when his back is turned:

"Ink and paper, dead and done with; Doxey spent what Doxey earned;

Poems doubtless are immortal where a poem can be discerned!"

How his face will go to ashes, when he feels his empty purse!

How he'll wish his vogue were greater,—plume himself it is no worse;

Then go bother the dear public with his puny little verse!

Don't I know how he will pose it, patronize our larger time:

"Poor old Browning; little Kipling; what attempts they made to rhyme!"

Just let me have half an hour with that nincompoop sublime!

I will haunt him like a purpose, I will ghost him like a fear;

When he least expects my presence, I'll be mumbling in his ear:

"O Le Lupe lived in Frisco, and I lived in Boston here.

"Never heard of us? Good heavens, can you never have been told

Of the Larks we used to publish, and the Chap-Books that we sold?

Where are all our first editions?" I feel damp and full of mould.

Bliss Carman.

BY THE SEA

Mutatis Mutandis

IS it life or is it death?

A whiff of the cool salt scum,

As the whole sea puffed its breath

Against you,—blind and dumb:

This way it answereth.

Nearer the sands it shows

Spotted and leprous tints;

But stay! yon fisher knows

Rock-tokens, which evince

How high the tide arose.

How high? In you and me

'Twas falling then, I think;

Open your heart's eyes, see

From just so slight a chink

The chasm that now must be.

You sighed and shivered then.

Blue ecstasies of June

Around you, shouts of fishermen,

Sharp wings of sea gulls, soon

To dip—the clock struck ten!

Was it the cup too full,

To carry it you grew

Too faint, the wine's hue dull

(Dulness, misjudged untrue!),

Love's flower unfit to cull?

You should have held me fast

One moment, stopped my pace.

Crushed down the feeble, vast

Suggestions of embrace,

And so be crowned at last.

But now! Bare-legged and brown

Bait-diggers delve the sand,

Tramp i' the sunshine down

Burnt-ochre vestured land,

And yonder stares the town.

A heron screams! I shut

This book of scurf and scum,

Its final pages uncut;

The sea-beast, blind and dumb,

Done with his bellowing? All but!

Bayard Taylor.

ANGELO ORDERS HIS DINNER

I,  ANGELO, obese, black-garmented,

Respectable, much in demand, well fed

With mine own larder's dainties, where, indeed,

Such cakes of myrrh or fine alyssum seed,

Thin as a mallow-leaf, embrowned o' the top.

Which, cracking, lets the ropy, trickling drop

Of sweetness touch your tongue, or potted nests

Which my recondite recipe invests

With cold conglomerate tidbits—ah, the bill!

(You say), but given it were mine to fill

My chests, the case so put were yours, we'll say

(This counter, here, your post, as mine to-day),

And you've an eye to luxuries, what harm

In smoothing down your palate with the charm

Yourself concocted? There we issue take;

And see! as thus across the rim I break

This puffy paunch of glazed embroidered cake,

So breaks, through use, the lust of watering chaps

And craveth plainness: do I so? Perhaps;

But that's my secret. Find me such a man

As Lippo yonder, built upon the plan

Of heavy storage, double-navelled, fat

From his own giblet's oils, an Ararat

Uplift o'er water, sucking rosy draughts

From Noah's vineyard,—crisp, enticing wafts

Yon kitchen now emits, which to your sense

Somewhat abate the fear of old events,

Qualms to the stomach,—I, you see, am slow

Unnecessary duties to forego,—

You understand? A venison haunch, haut gout.

Ducks that in Cimbrian olives mildly stew.

And sprigs of anise, might one's teeth provoke

To taste, and so we wear the complex yoke

Just as it suits,—my liking, I confess,

More to receive, and to partake no less,

Still more obese, while through thick adipose

Sensation shoots, from testing tongue to toes

Far off, dim-conscious, at the body's verge,

Where the froth-whispers of its waves emerge

On the untasting sand. Stay, now! a seat

Is bare: I, Angelo, will sit and eat.

Bayard Taylor.

THE FLIGHT OF THE BUCKET

PRE-ADMONISHETH the writer:

H'm, for a subject it is well enough!

Who wrote "Sordello" finds no subject tough.

Well, Jack and Jill—God knows the life they led

(The poet never told us, more's the pity)

Pent up in some damp kennel of their own,

Beneath the hillside; but it once befell

That Jack and Jill, niece, cousin, uncle, aunt

(Some one of all the brood), would wash and scour,

Rinse out a cess-pit, swab the kennel floor,

And water (liquor vitae, Lawson calls,

But I—I hold by whisky. Never mind;

I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, sir,

And missed the scrap o' blue at buttonhole),

Spring water was the needful at the time,

So they must climb the hill for 't. Well and good.

We all climb hills, I take it, on some quest,

Maybe for less than stinking (I forgot!

I mean than wholesome) water. . . . Ferret out

The rotten bucket from the lumber shed,

Weave ropes and splice the handle—off they go

To where the cold spring bubbles up i' the cleft,

And sink the bucket brimful in the spate.

Then downwards—hanging back? (You bet your life

The girl's share fell upon Jack's shoulders.) Down,

Down to the bottom—all but—trip, slip, squelch!

And guggle-guggle goes the bucketful

Back to the earth, and Jack's a broken head,

And swears amid the heather does our Jack.

(A man would swear who watched both blood and bucket,

One dripping down his forehead, t' other fled

Clinkety-tinkle, to the stones below,

A good half-hour's trudge to get it back.)

Jack, therefore, as I said, exploded straight

In brimstone-flavored language. You, of course,

Maintain he bore it calmly—not a bit.

A good bucolic curse that rent the cliffs

And frightened for a moment quaking Jill

Out of the limp, unmeaning girl's tee-hee

That womankind delight in. . . . Here we end

The first verse—there's a deal to study in 't.

So much for Jack—but here's a fate above,

A cosmic force that blunders into right,

Just when the strained sense hints at revolution

Because the world's great fly-wheel runs aslant—

And up go Jill's red kibes. (You think I'm wrong;

And Fate was napping at the time; perhaps

You're right.) We'll call it Devil's agency

That sent the shrieking sister on her head,

And knocked the tangled locks against the stones.

Well, down went Jill, but wasn't hurt. Oh, no!

The Devil pads the world to suit his own,

And packs the cards according. Down went Jill

Unhurt. And Jack trots off to bed, poor brute,

Fist welted into eyeball, mouth agape

For yelling,—your bucolic always yells,

And out of his domestic pharmacy

Rips forth the cruet-stand, upsets the cat,

And ravages the store-room for his balm.

Eureka!—but he didn't use that word—

A pound of candles, corpse-like, side by side,

Wrapped up in his medicament. Out, knife!

Cut string, and strip the shrouding from the lot!

Steep swift and jam it on the gaping cut;

Then bedward—cursing man and friends alike.

Now back to Jill. She wasn't hurt, I said,

And all the woman's spite was up in arms.

So Jack's abed. She slips, peeks through the door,

And sees the split head like a luggage-label,

Halved, quartered, on the pillow. "Ee-ki-ree,

Tee-hee-hee-hee," she giggles through the crack,

Much as the Roman ladies grinned—don't smile—

To see the dabbled bodies in the sand,

Appealing to their benches for a sign.

Down thumbs, and giggle louder—so did Jill.

But mark now! Comes the mother round the door,

Red-hot from climbing up the hill herself,

And caught the graceless giggler. Whack! flack! whack!

Here's Nemesis whichever way you like!

She didn't stop to argue. Given a head

Broken, a woman chuckling at the door,

And here's your circumstantial evidence complete.

Whack! while Jack sniffs and sniggers from the bed.

I like that horny-handed mother o' Jill.

The world's best women died, sir, long ago.

Well, Jack's avenged; as for the other, gr-r-r-r!

Rudyard Kipling.

THE JAM-POT

THE Jam-pot—tender thought!

I grabbed it—so did you.

"What wonder while we fought

Together that it flew

In shivers?" you retort.

You should have loosed your hold

One moment—checked your fist.

But, as it was, too bold

You grappled and you missed.

More plainly—you were sold.

"Well, neither of us shared

The dainty." That your plea?

"Well, neither of us cared,"

I answer. . . . "Let me see.

How have your trousers fared?"

Rudyard Kipling.

IMITATION OF ROBERT BROWNING

BIRTHDAYS? yes, in a general way;

For the most if not for the best of men.

You were born (I suppose) on a certain day,

So was I; or perhaps in the night, what then?

Only this: or at least, if more

You must know, not think it, and learn, not speak;

There is truth to be found on the unknown shore,

And many will find where few will seek.

For many are called and few are chosen,

And the few grow many as ages lapse.

But when will the many grow few; what dozen

Is fused into one by Time's hammer-taps?

A bare brown stone in a babbling brook,—

It was wanton to hurl it there, you say,—

And the moss, which clung in the sheltered nook

(Yet the stream runs cooler) is washed away.

That begs the question; many a prater

Thinks such a suggestion a sound "stop thief!"

Which, may I ask, do you think the greater,

Sergeant-at-arms or a Robber Chief?

And if it were not so? Still you doubt?

Ah! yours is a birthday indeed, if so.

That were something to write a poem about,

If one thought a little. I only know.

P. S.

There's a Me Society down at Cambridge,

Where my works, cum notis variorum,

Are talked about; well, I require the same bridge

That Euclid took toll at as Asinorum.

And, as they have got through several ditties

I thought were as stiff as a brick-built wall,

I've composed the above, and a stiff one it is,

A bridge to stop asses at, once for all.

J. K. Stephen.

THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER

(From her Point of View)

WHEN I had firmly answered "No,"

And he allowed that that was so,

I really thought I should be free

For good and all from Mr. B.,

And that he would soberly acquiesce.

I said that it would be discreet

That for awhile we should not meet;

I promised that I would always feel

A kindly interest in his weal;

I thanked him for his amorous zeal;

In short, I said all I could but "yes."

I said what I'm accustomed to;

I acted as I always do.

I promised he should find in me

A friend,—a sister, if that might be;

But he was still dissatisfied.

He certainly was most polite;

He said exactly what was right,

He acted very properly,

Except indeed for this, that he

insisted on inviting me

To come with him for "one more last ride."

A little while in doubt I stood:

A ride, no doubt, would do me good;

I had a habit and a hat

Extremely well worth looking at;

The weather was distinctly fine.

My horse, too, wanted exercise,

And time, when one is riding, flies;

Besides, it really seemed, you see,

The only way of ridding me

Of pertinacious Mr. B.;

So my head I graciously incline.

I won't say much of what happened next;

I own I was extremely vexed.

Indeed I should have been aghast

If any one had seen what passed;

But nobody need ever know

That, as I leaned forward to stir the fire,

He advanced before I could well retire;

And I suddenly felt, to my great alarm,

The grasp of a warm, unlicensed arm,

An embrace in which I found no charm;

I was awfully glad when he let me go.

Then we began to ride; my steed

Was rather fresh, too fresh indeed,

And at first I thought of little, save

The way to escape an early grave,

As the dust rose up on either side.

My stern companion jogged along

On a brown old cob both broad and strong.

He looked as he does when he's writing verse,

Or endeavoring not to swear and curse,

Or wondering where he has left his purse;

Indeed it was a sombre ride.

I spoke of the weather to Mr. B.,

But he neither listened nor spoke to me.

I praised his horse, and I smiled the smile

Which was wont to move him once in a while.

I said I was wearing his favorite flowers,

But I wasted my words on the desert air,

For he rode with a fixed and gloomy stare.

I wonder what he was thinking about.

As I don't read verse, I shan't find out.

It was something subtle and deep, no doubt,

A theme to detain a man for hours.

Ah! there was the corner where Mr. S.

So nearly induced me to whisper "yes;"

And here it was that the next but one

Proposed on horseback, or would have done,

Had his horse not most opportunely shied;

Which perhaps was due to the unseen flick

He received from my whip; 't was a scurvy trick,

But I never could do with that young man,—

I hope his present young woman can.

Well, I must say, never, since time began,

Did I go for a duller or longer ride.

He never smiles and he never speaks;

He might go on like this for weeks;

He rolls a slightly frenzied eye

Towards the blue and burning sky,

And the cob bounds on with tireless stride.

If we aren't home for lunch at two

I don't know what papa will do;

But I know full well he will say to me,

"I never approved of Mr. B.;

It's the very devil that you and he

Ride, ride together, forever ride."

J. K. Stephen.

UP THE SPOUT

I.

HI! Just you drop that! Stop, I say!

Shirk work, think slink off, twist friend's wrist?

Where that spined sand's lined band's the bay—

Lined blind with true sea's blue, as due—

Promising—not to pay?

II.

For the sea's debt leaves wet the sand;

Burst worst fate's weight's in one burst gun?

A man's own yacht, blown—What? off land?

Tack back, or veer round here, then—queer!

Reef points, though—understand?

III.

I'm blest if I do. Sigh? be blowed!

Love's doves make break life's ropes, eh? Tropes!

Faith's brig, baulked, sides caulked, rides at road;

Hope's gropes befogged, storm-dogged and bogged—

Clogged, water-logged, her load!

IV.

Stowed, by Jove, right and tight, away.

No show now how best plough sea's brow,

Wrinkling—breeze quick, tease thick, ere day,

Clear sheer wave's sheen of green, I mean,

With twinkling wrinkles—eh?

V.

Sea sprinkles wrinkles, tinkles light

Shells' bells—boy's joys that hap to snap!

It's just sea's fun, breeze done, to spite

God's rods that scourge her surge, I'd urge—

Not proper, is it—quite?

VI.

See, fore and aft, life's craft undone!

Crank plank, split spritsail—mark, sea's lark!

That gray cold sea's old sprees, begun

When men lay dark i' the ark, no spark,

All water—just God's fun!

VII.

Not bright, at best, his jest to these

Seemed—screamed, shrieked, wreaked on kin for sin!

When for mirth's yell earth's knell seemed please

Some dumb new grim great whim in him

Made Jews take chalk for cheese.

VIII.

Could God's rods bruise God's Jews? Their jowls

Bobbed, sobbed, gaped, aped, the plaice in face!

None heard, 'tis odds, his—God's—folk's howls.

Now, how must I apply, to try

This hookiest-beaked of owls?

IX.

Well, I suppose God knows—I don't.

Time's crimes mark dark men's types, in stripes

Broad as fen's lands men's hands were wont

Leave grieve unploughed, though proud and loud

With birds' words—No! he won't!

X.

One never should think good impossible.

Eh? say I'd hide this Jew's oil's cruse—

His shop might hold bright gold, engrossible

By spy—spring's air takes there no care

To wave the heath-flower's glossy bell!

XI.

But gold bells chime in time there, coined—

Gold! Old Sphinx winks there—'Read my screed!'

Doctrine Jews learn, use, burn for, joined

(Through new craft's stealth) with health and wealth—

At once all three purloined!

XII.

I rose with dawn, to pawn, no doubt,

(Miss this chance, glance untried aside?)

John's shirt, my—no! Ay, so—the lout!

Let yet the door gape, store on floor

And not a soul about?

XIII.

Such men lay traps, perhaps—and I'm

Weak—meek—mild—child of woe, you know!

But theft, I doubt, my lout calls crime.

Shrink? Think! Love's dawn in pawn—you spawn

Of Jewry! Just in time!

Algernon Charles Swinburne.

AFTER WHITMAN

AN AMERICAN, ONE OF THE ROUGHS,

A KOSMOS

NATURE, continuous Me!

Saltness, and vigorous, never torpi-yeast of Me!

Florid, unceasing, forever expansive;

Not Schooled, not dizened, not washed and powdered;

Strait-laced not at all; far otherwise than polite;

Not modest, nor immodest;

Divinely tanned and freckled; gloriously unkempt;

Ultimate yet unceasing; capricious though determined;

Speak as thou listeth, and tell the askers that which they seek to know.

Thy speech to them will be not quite intelligible.

Never mind! utter thy wild commonplaces;

Yawp them loudly, shrilly;

Silence with shrill noise the lisps of the foo-foos.

Answer in precise terms of barbaric vagueness

The question that the Fun editor hath sparked through Atlantic cable

To W..T W..TM.N, the speaker of the pass-word primeval;

The signaller of the signal of democracy;

The seer and hearer of things in general;

The poet translucent; fleshy, disorderly, sensually inclined;

Each tag and part of whom is a miracle.

(Thirteen pages of MS. relating to Mr. W..t W..tm.n are here omitted.)

Rhapsodically state the fact that is and is not;

That is not, being past; that is, being eternal;

If indeed it ever was, which is exactly the point in question.

Anonymous.

CAMERADOS

EVERYWHERE, everywhere, following me;

Taking me by the buttonhole, pulling off my boots, hustling me with the elbows;

Sitting down with me to clams and the chowder-kettle;

Plunging naked at my side into the sleek, irascible surges;

Soothing me with the strain that I neither permit nor prohibit;

Flocking this way and that, reverent, eager, orotund, irrepressible;

Denser than sycamore leaves when the north-winds are scouring Paumanok;

What can I do to restrain them? Nothing, verily nothing.

Everywhere, everywhere, crying aloud for me;

Crying, I hear; and I satisfy them out of my nature;

And he that comes at the end of the feast shall find something over.

Whatever they want I give; though it be something else, they shall have it.

Drunkard, leper, Tammanyite, small-pox and cholera patient, shoddy and codfish millionnaire,

And the beautiful young men, and the beautiful young women, all the same,

Crowding, hundreds of thousands, cosmical multitudes,

Buss me and hang on my hips and lean up to my shoulders,

Everywhere listening to my yawp and glad whenever they hear it;

Everywhere saying, say it, Walt, we believe it:

Everywhere, everywhere.

Bayard Taylor.

IMITATION OF WALT WHITMAN

WHO am I?

I have been reading Walt Whitman, and know not whether he be me, or me he;—

Or otherwise!

Oh, blue skies! oh, rugged mountains! oh, mighty, rolling Niagara!

Oh, chaos and everlasting bosh!

I am a poet; I swear it! If you do not believe it you are a dolt, a fool, an idiot!

Milton, Shakespere, Dante, Tommy Moore, Pope, never, but Byron, too, perhaps, and last, not least, Me, and the Poet Close.

We send our resonance echoing down the adamantine cañons of the future!

We live forever! The worms who criticise us (asses!) laugh, scoff, jeer, and babble babble—die!

Serve them right.

What is the difference between Judy, the pride of Fleet Street, the glory of Shoe Lane, and Walt Whitman?

Start not! 'Tis no end of a minstrel show who perpends this query;

'Tis no brain-racking puzzle from an inner page of the Family Herald,

No charade, acrostic (double or single), conundrum, riddle, rebus, anagram, or other guess-work.

I answer thus: We both write truths—great, stern, solemn, unquenchable truths—couched in more or less ridiculous language.

I, as a rule use rhyme, he does not; therefore, I am his Superior (which is also a lake in his great and glorious country).

I scorn, with the unutterable scorn of the despiser of pettiness, to take a mean advantage of him.

He writes, he sells, he is read (more or less); why then should I rack my brains and my rhyming dictionary? I will see the public hanged first!

I sing of America, of the United States, of the stars and stripes of Oshkosh, of Kalamazoo, and of Salt Lake City.

I sing of the railroad cars, of the hotels, of the breakfasts, the lunches, the dinners, and the suppers;

Of the soup, the fish, the entrées, the joints, the game, the puddings and the ice-cream.

I sing all—I eat all—I sing in turn of Dr. Bluffem's Antibilious Pills.

No subject is too small, too insignificant, for Nature's poet.

I sing of the cocktail, a new song for every cocktail, hundreds of songs, hundreds of cocktails.

It is a great and a glorious land! The Mississippi, the Missouri, and a million other torrents roll their waters to the ocean.

It is a great and glorious land! The Alleghanies, the Catskills, the Rockies (see atlas for other mountain ranges too numerous to mention) pierce the clouds!

And the greatest and most glorious product of this great and glorious land is Walt Whitman;

This must be so, for he says it himself.

There is but one greater than he between the rising and the setting sun.

There is but one before whom he meekly bows his humbled head.

Oh, great and glorious land, teeming producer of all things, creator of Niagara, and inventor of Walt Whitman,

Erase your national advertisements of liver pads and cures for rheumatism from your public monuments, and inscribe thereon in letters of gold the name Judy.

Judy.

IMITATION OF WALT WHITMAN

THE clear cool note of the cuckoo which has ousted the legitimate nest-holder,

The whistle of the railway guard despatching the train to the inevitable collision,

The maiden's monosyllabic reply to a polysyllabic proposal,

The fundamental note of the last trump, which is presumably D natural;

All of these are sounds to rejoice in, yea to let your ribs re-echo with.

But better than all of them is the absolutely last chord of the apparently inexhaustible pianoforte player.

J. K. Stephen.

THE POET AND THE WOODLOUSE

SAID a poet to a woodlouse, "Thou art certainly my brother;

I discern in thee the markings of the fingers of the Whole;

And I recognize, in spite of all the terrene smut and smother,

In the colors shaded off thee, the suggestions of a soul.

"Yea," the poet said, "I smell thee by some passive divination,

I am satisfied with insight of the measure of thine house;

What had happened I conjecture, in a blank and rhythmic passion,

Had the æons thought of making thee a man and me a louse.

"The broad lives of upper planets, their absorption and digestion,

Food and famine, health and sickness, I can scrutinize and test,

Through a shiver of the senses comes a resonance of question,

And by proof of balanced answer I decide that I am best.

"Man the fleshly marvel always feels a certain kind of awe stick

To the skirts of contemplation, cramped with nympholeptic weight;

Feels his faint sense charred and branded by the touch of solar caustic,

On the forehead of his spirit feels the footprint of a Fate."

"Notwithstanding which, O poet," spake the woodlouse, very blandly,

"I am likewise the created,—I the equipoise of thee;

I the particle, the atom, I behold on either hand lie

The inane of measured ages that were embryos of me.

"I am fed with intimations, I am clothed with consequences,

And the air I breathe is colored with apocalyptic blush;

Ripest-budded odors blossom out of dim chaotic stenches,

And the Soul plants spirit-lilies in sick leagues of human slush.

"I am thrilled half cosmically through by cryptophantic surgings,

Till the rhythmic hills roar silent through a spongious kind of blee;

And earth's soul yawns disembowelled of her pancreatic organs,

Like a madrepore if mesmerized, in rapt catalepsy.

"And I sacrifice, a Levite; and I palpitate, a poet;

Can I close dead ears against the rush and resonance of things?

Symbols in me breathe and flicker up the heights of her heroic;

Earth's worst spawn, you said, and cursed me? Look! approve me! I have wings.

"Ah, men's poets! men's conventions crust you round and swathe you mist-like,

And the world's wheels grind your spirits down the dust ye overtrod;

We stand sinlessly stark-naked in effulgence of the Christlight,

And our polecat chokes not cherubs; and our skunk smells sweet to God.

"For he grasps the pale Created by some thousand vital handles,

Till a Godshine, bluely winnowed through the sieve of thunder-storms,

Shimmers up the non-existence round the churning feet of angels;

And the atoms of that glory may be seraphs, being worms.

"Friends, your nature underlies us and your pulses overplay us;

Ye, with social sores unbandaged, can ye sing right and steer wrong?

For the transient cosmic, rooted in imperishable chaos,

Must be kneaded into drastics as material for a song.

"Eyes once purged from homebred vapors through humanitarian passion

See that monochrome a despot through a democratic prism;

Hands that rip the soul up, reeking from divine evisceration,

Not with priestlike oil anoint him, but a stronger-smelling chrism.

"Pass, O poet, retransfigured! God, the psychometric rhapsode,

Fills with fiery rhythms the silence, stings the dark with stars that blink;

All eternities hang round him like an old man's clothes collapsèd,

While he makes his mundane music—AND HE WILL NOT STOP, I THINK."

Algernon Charles Swinburne.

AFTER CHARLES KINGSLEY

THREE LITTLE FISHERS

THREE little fishers trudged over the hill,

Over the hill in the sun's broad glare,

With rods and crooked pins, to the brookby the mill,

While three fond mothers sought them everywhere.

For boys will go fishing, though mothers deny.

Watching their chance they sneak off on the sly

To come safely back in the gloaming.

Three mothers waited outside the gate.

Three little fishers, tired, sunburnt, and worn,

Came into sight as the evening grew late,

Their chubby feet bleeding, their clothing all torn,

For "boys will be boys"—have a keen eye for fun,

While mothers fret, fume, scold, and—succumb,

And welcome them home in the gloaming.

Three little fishers were called to explain—

Each stood condemned, with his thumb in his eye,

They promised never to do so again,

And were hung up in the pantry to dry.

Three mothers heaved great sighs of relief,

An end had been put to their magnified grief,

When the boys came home in the gloaming.

Frank H. Stauffer.

THE THREE POETS

THREE poets went sailing down Boston Bay,

All into the East as the sun went down.

Each felt that the editors loved him best,

And would welcome spring poetry in Boston town.

For poets must dream, though the editors frown;

Their revel in visions will not be turned down,

Though the general reader is moaning!

Three editors climbed to the loftiest tower

That they could find in all Boston town.

And they planned to conceal themselves, hour after hour,

Till the Sun—and the poets—had both gone down.

For spring poets must write, though the editors rage.

The artistic nature must thus be engaged,

Though the publishers all are groaning!

Three corpses lay out on the Back Bay sand

Just after the first Spring Sun went down,

And the Press sat down to a banquet grand

In honor of poets no more in the town.

For poets will write while the editors sleep,

Though they've little to earn and nothing to keep,

And the populace all are moaning!

Lilian Whiting.

AFTER MRS. R. H. STODDARD

THE NETTLE

IF days were nights, I could their weight endure,

This darkness cannot hide from me the plant

I seek; I know it by the rasping touch.

The moon is wrapped in bombazine of cloud;

The capes project like crooked lobster-shears

Into the bobbery of the waves; the marsh,

At ebb, has now a miserable smell.

I will not be delayed nor hustled back,

Though every wind should muss my outspread hair.

I snatch the plant that seems my coming fate;

I pass the crinkled satin of the rose,

The violets, frightened out of all their wits,

And other flowers, to me so commonplace,

And cursed with showy mediocrity,

To cull the foliage which repels and stings.

Weak hands may bleed; but mine are tough with pride,

And I but smile where others sob and screech.

The draggled flounces of the willow lash

My neck; I tread upon the bouncing rake,

Which bangs me sorely, but I hasten on,

With teeth firm-set as biting on a wire,

And feet and fingers clinched in bitter pain.

This, few would comprehend; but, if they did,

I should despise myself and merit scorn.

We all are riddles which we cannot guess;

Each has his gimcracks and his thingumbobs,

And mine are night and nettles, mud and mist,

Since others hate them, cowardly avoid.

Things are mysterious when you make them so,

And the slow-pacing days are mighty queer;

But Fate is at the bottom of it all,

And something somehow turns up in the end.

Bayard Taylor.

AFTER BAYARD TAYLOR

HADRAMAUT

THE grand conglomerate hills of Araby,

That stand empanoplied in utmost thought,

With dazzling ramparts front the Indian sea,

Down there in Hadramaut.

The sunshine smashes in the doors of morn

And leaves them open; there the vibrant calm

Of life magniloquent pervades forlorn

The giant fronds of palm.

The cockatoo upon the upas screams;

The armadillo fluctuates o'er the hill;

And like a flag, incarnadined in dreams,

All crimsonly I thrill!

There have iconoclasts no power to harm,

So, folded grandly in translucent mist,

I let the lights stream down my jasper arm,

And o'er my opal fist.

An Adamite of old, primeval Earth,

I see the Sphinx upon the porphyry shore,

Deprived of utterance ages ere her birth,

As I am,—only more!

Who shall ensnare me with invested gold,

Or prayer symbols, backed like malachite?

Let gaunt reformers objurgate and scold,

I gorge me with delight.

I do not yearn for what I covet most;

I give the winds the passionate gifts I sought;

And slumber fiercely on the torrid coast,

Down there in Hadramaut!

Bayard Taylor.

AFTER WILLIAM MORRIS

ESTUNT THE GRIFF

(Argument: Showing how a man of England, hearing from certain Easterlings of the glories of their land, set sail to rule it)

AND so unto the End of Graves came he,

Where nigh the staging, ready for the sea,

Oarless and sailless lay the galley's bulk,

Albeit smoke did issue from the hulk

And fell away, across the marshes dun,

Into the visage of the wan-white sun.

And seaward ran the river, cold and gray,

Bearing the brown-sailed Eastland boats away

'Twixt the low shore and shallow sandy spit.

Yet he, being sad, took little heed of it,

But straightly fled toward the misty beach,

And hailed in choked and swiftly spoken speech

A shallop, that for men's conveyance lay

Hard by the margin of that watery way.

Then many that were in like evil plight—

Sad folk, with drawn, dumb lips and faces white,

That writhed themselves into a hopeless smile—

Crowded the shallop, making feint the while

Of merriment and pleasure at that tide,

Though oft upon the laughers' lips there died

The jest, and in its place there came a sigh,

So that men gat but little good thereby,

And, shivering, clad themselves about with furs.

Strange faces of the swarthy outlanders

Looked down upon the shallop as she threw

The sullen waters backward from her screw

And, running forward for some little space,

Stayed featly at the galley's mounting-place,

Where slowly these sad-faced landsmen went

Crabwise and evil-mouthed with discontent,

Holding to sodden rope and rusty chain

And bulwark that was wetted with the rain:

For 'neath their feet the black bows rose and fell,

Nor might a man walk steadfastly or well

Who had not hand upon a rail or rope;

And Estunt turned him landward, and wan hope

Grew on his spirit as an evil mist,

Thinking of loving lips his lips had kissed

An hour since, and how those lips were sweet

An hour since, far off in Fenchurch Street.

Then, with a deep-drawn breath most like a sigh,

He watched the empty shallop shoreward hie;

Then turned him round the driving rain to face,

And saw men heave the anchor from its place;

Whereat, when by the river-mouth, the ship

Began, amid the waters' strife to dip,

His soul was heaved between his jaws that day,

And to the East the good ship took her way.

Rudyard Kipling.

AFTER ALFRED AUSTIN

AN ODE

I   SING a song of sixpence, and of rye

A pocketful—recalling, sad to state,

The niggardly emoluments which I

Receive as Laureate!

Also I sing of blackbirds—in the mart

At four-a-penny. Thus, in other words,

The sixpence which I mentioned at the start

Purchased two dozen birds.

So four-and-twenty birds were deftly hid—

Or shall we say, were skilfully concealed?—

Within the pie-dish. When they raised the lid,

What melody forth pealed!

Now I like four-and-twenty blackbirds sing,

With all their sweetness, all their rapture keen;

And isn't this a pretty little thing

To set before the Queen?

The money-counting monarch—sordid man!—

His wife, who robbed the little busy bees,

I disregard. In fact a poet can

But pity folks like these.

The maid was in the garden. Happy maid!

Her choice entitles her to rank above

Master and Mistress. Gladly she surveyed

The Garden That I Love!

—Where grow my daffodils, anemones,

Tulips, auriculas, chrysanthemums,

Cabbages, asparagus, sweet peas,

With apples, pears, and plums—

(That's a parenthesis. The very name

Of garden really carries one astray!)

But suddenly a feathered ruffian came,

And stole her nose away.

Eight stanzas finished! So my Court costume

I lay aside: the Laureate, I suppose,

Has done his part; the man may now resume

His journalistic prose.

Anthony C. Deane.

AFTER W. S. GILBERT

ODE TO A LONDON FOG

ROLL on, thick haze, roll on!

Through each familiar way

Roll on!

What though I must go out to-day?

What though my lungs are rather queer?

What though asthmatic ills I fear?

What though my wheeziness is clear?

Never you mind!

Roll on!

Roll on, thick haze, roll on!

Through street and square and lane

Roll on!

It's true I cough and cough again;

It's true I gasp and puff and blow;

It's true my trip may lay me low—

But that's not your affair, you know.

Never you mind!

Roll on!

Anonymous.

PRESIDENT GARFIELD

WHEN he was a lad he served a term

On a big canal with a boatman's firm;

With a heart so free and a will so strong,

On the towpath drove two mules along.

And he drove those mules so carefullee

He's a candidate now for the Presidencee.

As a driver boy he made such a mark

He came to the deck of the inland barque

And all of the perils to boat and crew.

He stood at the helm and guided thro'.

He stood at the helm so manfullee

He's a candidate now for the Presidencee.

He did so well with the helm and mules,

They made him a teacher of district schools;

And when from college in a bran new suit,

A Greek Professor at the Institute,

Where Greek and Latin he taught so free

He's a candidate now for the Presidencee.

Now boys who cherish ambitious schemes,

Though now you may be but drivers of teams,

Look well to the work you may chance to do,

And do it with a hand that is kind and true.

Whatever you do, do it faithfullee,

And you may aspire to the Presidencee.

Anonymous.

PROPINQUITY NEEDED

CELESTINE Silvousplait Justine de Mouton Rosalie,

A coryphée who lived and danced in naughty, gay Paree,

Was every bit as pretty as a French girl e'er can be

(Which isn't saying much).

Maurice Boulanger (there's a name that would adorn a king),

But Morris Baker was the name they called the man I sing.

He lived in New York City in the Street that's labeled Spring

(Chosen because it rhymed).

Now Baker was a lonesome youth and wanted to be wed,

And for a wife, all over town he hunted, it is said;

And up and down Fifth Avenue he ofttimes wanderéd

(He was a peripatetic Baker, he was).

And had he met Celestine, not a doubt but Cupid's darts

Would in a trice have wounded both of their fond, loving hearts;

But he has never left New York to stray in foreign parts

(Because he hasn't the price).

And she has never left Paree and so, of course, you see

There's not the slightest chance at all she'll marry Morris B.

For love to get well started, really needs propinquity

(Hence my title).

Charles Battell Loomis.

AFTER R. H. STODDARD

THE CANTELOPE

SIDE by side in the crowded streets,

Amid its ebb and flow,

We walked together one autumn morn;

('Twas many years ago!)

The markets blushed with fruits and flowers;

(Both Memory and Hope!)

You stopped and bought me at the stall,

A spicy cantelope.

We drained together its honeyed wine,

We cast the seeds away;

I slipped and fell on the moony rinds,

And you took me home on a dray!

The honeyed wine of your love is drained;

I limp from the fall I had;

The snow-flakes muffle the empty stall,

And everything is sad.

The sky is an inkstand, upside down,

It splashes the world with gloom;

The earth is full of skeleton bones,

And the sea is a wobbling tomb!

Bayard Taylor.

AFTER A. A. PROCTOR

THE LOST VOICE

SEATED at Church in the winter

I was frozen in every limb;

And the village choir shrieked wildly

Over a noisy hymn.

I do not know what they were singing,

For while I was watching them

Our Curate began his sermon

With the sound of a slight "Ahem!"

It frightened the female portion,

Like the storm which succeeds a calm,

Both maidens and matrons heard it

With a touch of inane alarm.

It told them of pain and sorrow,

Cold, cough, and neuralgic strife,

Bronchitis, and influenza

All aimed at our Curate's life.

It linked all perplex'd diseases

Into one precious frame;

They trembled with rage if a sceptic

Attempted to ask its name.

They have wrapped him in mustard plasters,

Stuffed him with food and wine,

They have fondled, caressed, and nursed him,

With sympathy divine.

It may be that other Curates

Will preach in that Church to them,

Will there be every time, Good Heavens!

Such a fuss for a slight—Ahem!

A. H. S.

THE LOST APE

SEATED one day on an organ,

A monkey was ill at ease,

When his fingers wandered idly,

In search of the busy fleas.

I knew not what he was slaying,

Or what he was dreaming then,

But a sound burst forth from that organ,

Not at all like a grand Amen.

It came through the evening twilight

Like the close of the feline psalm,

But the melody raised by their voices

Compared to this noise was balm!

It was worse than Salvation's Sorrow,

With their band of drum and fife,

And cut, like an evening "Echo,"

The Tit-Bits out of "Life."

I upset my table and tea things,

And left not one perfect piece;

I gazed at the wreck in silence,

Not loth, but unable to speak!

Then I sought him, alas! all vainly,

The source of that terrible whine,

With his cracked and tuneless organ,

And its melodies undivine.

Of course there was no policeman

To move him away,—and men

Who grind organs smile demurely

At your curses, and smile again.

It may be that I could choke him—

Could kill him—but organ men,

If you kill a dozen to-day,

To-morrow will come again!

J. W. G. W.

THE LOST WORD

SEATED one day at the typewriter,

I was weary of a's and e's,

And my fingers wandered wildly

Over the consonant keys.

I know not what I was writing,

With that thing so like a pen;

But I struck one word astounding—

Unknown to the speech of men.

It flooded the sense of my verses,

Like the break of a tinker's dam,

And I felt as one feels when the printer

Of your "infinite calm" makes clam.

It mixed up s's and x's

Like an alphabet coming to strife.

It seemed the discordant echo

Of a row between husband and wife.

It brought a perplexed meaning

Into my perfect piece,

And set the machinery creaking

As though it were scant of grease.

I have tried, but I try it vainly,

The one last word to divine

Which came from the keys of my typewriter

And so would pass as mine.

It may be some other typewriter

Will produce that word again,

It may be, but only for others—

I shall write henceforth with a pen.

C. H. Webb.

AFTER GEORGE MEREDITH

AT THE SIGN OF THE COCK

(FRENCH STYLE, 1898)

(Being an Ode in further "Contribution to the Song of French History," dedicated, without malice or permission, to Mr. George Meredith)

I

ROOSTER her sign,

Rooster her pugnant note, she struts

Evocative, amazon spurs aprick at heel;

Nid-nod the authentic stump

Of the once ensanguined comb vermeil as wine;

With conspuent doodle-doo

Hails breach o' the hectic dawn of yon New Year,

Last issue up to date

Of quiverful Fate

Evolved spontaneous; hails with tonant trump

The spiriting prime o' the clashed carillon-peal;

Ruffling her caudal plumes derisive of scuts;

Inconscient how she stalks an immarcessibly absurd Bird.

II

Mark where her Equatorial Pioneer

Delirant on the tramp goes littoralwise.

His Flag at furl, portmanteaued; drains to the dregs

The penultimate brandy-bottle, coal-on-the-headpiece gift

Of who avenged the Old Sea-Rover's smirch.

Marchant he treads the all-along of inarable drift

On dubiously connivent legs,

The facile prey of predatory flies;

Panting for further; sworn to lurch

Empirical on to the Menelik-buffered, enhavened blue,

Rhyming—see Cantique I.—with doodle-doo.

III

Infuriate she kicked against Imperial fact;

Vulnant she felt

What pin-stab should have stained Another's pelt

Puncture her own Colonial lung-balloon,

Volant to nigh meridian. Whence rebuffed,

The perjured Scythian she lacked

At need's pinch, sick with spleen of the rudely cuffed

Below her breath she cursed; she cursed the hour

When on her spring for him the young Tyrannical broke

Amid the unhallowed wedlock's vodka-shower,

She passionate, he dispassionate; tricked

Her wits to eye-blind; borrowed the ready as for dower;

Till from the trance of that Hymettus-moon

She woke,

A nuptial-knotted derelict;

Pensioned with Rescripts other aid declined

By the plumped leech saturate urging Peace

In guise of heavy-armed Gospeller to men,

Tyrannical unto fraternal equal liberal, her. Not she;

Not till Alsace her consanguineous find

What red deteutonising artillery

Shall shatter her beer-reek alien police

The just-now pluripollent; not till then.

IV

More pungent yet the esoteric pain

Squeezing her pliable vitals nourishes feud

Insanely grumous, grumously insane.

For lo!

Past common balmly on the Bordereau,

Churns she the skim o' the gutter's crust

With Anti-Judaic various carmagnole,

Whooped praise of the Anti-Just;

Her boulevard brood

Gyratory in convolvements militant-mad;

Theatrical of faith in the Belliform,

Her Og,

Her Monstrous. Fled what force she had

To buckle the jaw-gape, wide agog

For the Preconcerted One,

The Anticipated, ripe to clinch the whole;

Queen-bee to hive the hither and thither volant swarm.

Bides she his coming; adumbrates the new

Expurgatorial Divine,

Her final effulgent Avatar,

Postured outside a trampling mastodon

Black as her Baker's charger; towering; visibly gorged

With blood of traitors. Knee-grip stiff,

Spine straightened, on he rides;

Embossed the Patriot's brow with hieroglyph

Of martial dossiers, nothing forged

About him save his armour. So she bides

Voicing his advent indeterminably far,

Rooster her sign,

Rooster her conspuent doodle-doo.

V

Behold her, pranked with spurs for bloody sport,

How she acclaims,

A crapulous chanticleer,

Breach of the hectic dawn of yon New Year.

Not yet her fill of rumours sucked;

Inebriate of honour; blushfully wroth;

Tireless to play her old primeval games;

Her plumage preened the yet unplucked

Like sails of a galleon, rudder hard amort

With crepitant mast

Fronting the hazard to dare of a dual blast

The intern and the extern, blizzards both.

Owen Seaman.

AFTER DANTE GABRIEL

ROSSETTI

A CHRISTMAS WAIL

(Not by Dante Gabriel Rossetti)

ON Christmas day I dined with Brown.

(Oh the dinner was fine to see!)

I drove to his house, right merrily down,

To a western square of London town.

(And I moan and I cry, Woe's me!)

We dined off turkey and Christmas beef:

(Oh the dinner was fine to see!)

My anguish is sore and my comfort's brief,

And nought but blue pills can ease my grief,

(As I moan and I cry, Woe's me!)

We gorged plum-pudding and hot mince pies,

(Oh the dinner was fine to see!)

And other nameless atrocities,

The weight of which on my—bosom lies.

(And I moan and I cry, Woe's me!)

We drank dry Clicquot and rare old port,

(Oh the dinner was fine to see!)

And I pledged my host for a right good sort

In bumpers of both, for I never thought

(I should moan and cry, Woe's me!)

But I woke next day with a fearful head,

(Oh that dinner was fine to see!)

And on my chest is a weight like lead,

And I frequently wish that I were dead,

(And I moan and I cry, Woe's me!)

And as for Brown—why the truth to tell—

(Oh that dinner was fine to see!)

I hate him now with the hate of hell,

Though before I loved him passing well,

(And I moan and I cry, Woe's me!)

Anonymous.

BALLAD

THE auld wife sat at her ivied door

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese),

A thing she had frequently done before,

And her spectacles lay on her apron'd knees.

The piper he piped on the hill-top high

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese),

Till the cow said "I die," and the goose ask'd "Why?"

And the dog said nothing, but search'd for fleas.

The farmer he strode through the square farmyard

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese);

His last brew of ale was a trifle hard—

The connection of which with the plot one sees.

The farmer's daughter had frank blue eyes

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese);

She hears the rooks caw in the windy skies,

As she sits at her lattice and shells her peas.

The farmer's daughter hath ripe red lips

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese);

If you try to approach her, away she skips

Over tables and chairs with apparent ease.

The farmer's daughter hath soft brown hair

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese),

And I met with a ballad, I can't say where,

Which wholly consisted of lines like these.

PART II

She sat with her hands 'neath her dimpled cheeks

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese),

And spake not a word. While a lady speaks

There is hope, but she didn't even sneeze.

She sat, with her hands 'neath her crimson cheeks

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese);

She gave up mending her father's breeks,

And let the cat roll in her new chemise.

She sat, with her hands 'neath her burning cheeks

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese),

And gazed at the piper for thirteen weeks;

Then she follow'd him out o'er the misty leas.

Her sheep follow'd her, as their tails did them

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese),

And this song is consider'd a perfect gem,

And as to the meaning, it's what you please.

Charles S. Calverley.

CIMABUELLA

FAIR-TINTED cheeks, clear eyelids drawn

In crescent curves above the light

Of eyes, whose dim, uncertain dawn

Becomes not day: a forehead white

Beneath long yellow heaps of hair:

She is so strange she must be fair.

Had she sharp, slant-wise wings outspread,

She were an angel; but she stands

With flat dead gold behind her head,

And lilies in her long thin hands:

Her folded mantle, gathered in,

Falls to her feet as it were tin.

Her nose is keen as pointed flame;

Her crimson lips no thing express;

And never dread of saintly blame

Held down her heavy eyelashes:

To guess what she were thinking of

Precludeth any meaner love.

An azure carpet, fringed with gold,

Sprinkled with scarlet spots, I laid

Before her straight, cool feet unrolled;

But she nor sound nor movement made

(Albeit I heard a soft, shy smile,

Printing her neck a moment's while).

And I was shamed through all my mind

For that she spake not, neither kissed,

But stared right past me. Lo! behind

Me stood, in pink and amethyst,

Sword-girt and velvet-doubleted,

A tall, gaunt youth, with frowzy head.

Wide nostrils in the air, dull eyes,

Thick lips that simpered, but, ah me!

I saw, with most forlorn surprise,

He was the Thirteenth Century,

I but the Nineteenth; then despair

Curdled beneath my curling hair.

O Love and Fate! How could she choose

My rounded outlines, broader brain,

And my resuscitated Muse?

Some tears she shed, but whether pain

Or joy in him unlocked their source,

I could not fathom which, of course.

But I from missals quaintly bound,

With cither and with clavichord,

Will sing her songs of sovran sound:

Belike her pity will afford

Such fain return as suits a saint

So sweetly done in verse and paint.

Bayard Taylor.

THE POSTER GIRL

THE blessed Poster girl leaned out

From a pinky-purple heaven.

One eye was red and one was green;

Her bang was cut uneven;

She had three fingers on her hand,

And the hairs on her head were seven.

Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,

No sunflowers did adorn,

But a heavy Turkish portière

Was very neatly worn;

And the hat that lay along her back

Was yellow, like canned corn.

It was a kind of wobbly wave

That she was standing on,

And high aloft she flung a scarf

That must have weighed a ton;

And she was rather tall—at least

She reached up to the sun.

She curved and writhed, and then she said

Less green of speech than blue:

"Perhaps I am absurd—perhaps

I don't appeal to you;

But my artistic worth depends

Upon the point of view."

I saw her smile, although her eyes

Were only smudgy smears;

And then she swished her swirling arms,

And wagged her gorgeous ears.

She sobbed a blue-and-green-checked sob,

And wept some purple tears.

Carolyn Wells.

AFTER JEAN INGELOW

LOVERS, AND A REFLECTION

IN moss-prankt dells which the sunbeams flatter

(And heaven it knoweth what that may mean;

Meaning, however, is no great matter),

Where woods are a-tremble, with rifts atween;

Thro' God's own heather we wonn'd together,

I and my Willie (O love my love):

I need hardly remark it was glorious weather,

And flitterbats waver'd alow, above:

Boats were curtseying, rising, bowing,

(Boats in that climate are so polite),

And sands were a ribbon of green endowing,

And oh, the sundazzle on bark and bight!

Thro' the rare red heather we danced together,

(O love my Willie!) and smelt for flowers:

I must mention again it was gorgeous weather,

Rhymes are so scarce in this world of ours:

By rises that flush'd with their purple favors,

Thro' becks that brattled o'er grasses sheen,

We walked and waded, we two young shavers,

Thanking our stars we were both so green.

We journeyed in parallels, I and Willie,

In fortunate parallels! Butterflies,

Hid in weltering shadows of daffodilly

Or marjoram, kept making peacock eyes:

Songbirds darted about, some inky

As coal, some snowy (I ween) as curds;

Or rosy as pinks, or as roses pinky—

They reck of no eerie To-come, those birds!

But they skim over bents which the millstream washes,

Or hang in the lift 'neath a white cloud's hem;

They need no parasols, no goloshes;

And good Mrs. Trimmer she feedeth them.

Then we thrid God's cowslips (as erst His heather)

That endowed the wan grass with their golden blooms;

And snapt—(it was perfectly charming weather)—

Our fingers at Fate and her goodness-glooms:

And Willie 'gan sing (oh, his notes were fluty;

Wafts fluttered them out to the white-winged sea)—

Something made up of rhymes that have done much duty,

Rhymes (better to put it) of "ancientry:"

Bowers of flowers encounter'd showers

In William's carol—(O love my Willie!)

Then he bade sorrow borrow from blithe to-morrow

I quite forget what—say a daffodilly:

A nest in a hollow, "with buds to follow,"

I think occurred next in his nimble strain;

And clay that was "kneaden" of course in Eden—

A rhyme most novel, I do maintain:

Mists, bones, the singer himself, love-stories,

And all least furlable things got "furled;"

Not with any design to conceal their "glories,"

But simply and solely to rhyme with "world."

*      *      *      *      *      *      *      *

O if billows and pillows and hours and flowers,

And all the brave rhymes of an elder day,

Could be furled together, this genial weather,

And carted or carried on "wafts" away,

Nor ever again trotted out—ah me!

How much fewer volumes of verse there'd be!

Charles S. Calverley.

THE SHRIMP-GATHERERS

SCARLET spaces of sand and ocean,

Gulls that circle and winds that blow;

Baskets and boats and men in motion,

Sailing and scattering to and fro.

Girls are waiting, their wimples adorning

With crimson sprinkles the broad gray flood;

And down the beach the blush of the morning

Shines reflected from moisture and mud.

Broad from the yard the sail hangs limpy;

Lightly the steersman whistles a lay;

Pull with a will, for the nets are shrimpy,

Pull with a whistle, our hearts are gay!

Tuppence a quart; there are more than fifty!

Coffee is certain, and beer galore;

Coats are corduroy, minds are thrifty,

Won't we go it on sea and shore!

See, behind, how the hills are freckled

With low white huts, where the lasses bide

See, before, how the sea is speckled

With sloops and schooners that wait the tide

Yarmouth fishers may rail and roister,

Tyne-side boys may shout, "Give way!"

Let them dredge for the lobster and oyster,

Pink and sweet are our shrimps to-day!

Shrimps and the delicate periwinkle,

Such are the sea-fruits lasses love;

Ho! to your nets till the blue stars twinkle,

And the shutterless cottages gleam above!

Bayard Taylor.

AFTER CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

REMEMBER

REMEMBER it, although you're far away—

Too far away more fivers yet to land,

When you no more can proffer notes of hand,

Nor I half yearn to change my yea to nay.

Remember, when no more in airy way,

You tell me of repayment sagely planned:

Only remember it, you understand!

It's rather late to counsel you to pay;

Yet if you should remember for awhile,

And then forget it wholly, I should grieve;

For, though your light procrastinations leave

Small remnants of the hope that once I had,

Than that you should forget your debt and smile,

I'd rather you'd remember and be sad.

Judy.

AFTER LEWIS CARROLL

WAGGAWOCKY

'TWAS Maytime, and the lawyer coves

Did jibe and jabber in the wabe,

All menaced were the Tichborne groves,

And their true lord, the Babe.

"Beware the Waggawock, my son,

The eyelid twitch, the knees' incline,

Beware the Baignet network, spun

For gallant Ballantine."

He took his ton-weight brief in hand,

Long time the hidden clue he sought,

Then rested he by the Hawkins tree,

And sat awhile in thought.

And as in toughish thought he rocks,

The Waggawock, sans truth or shame,

Came lumbering to the witness box,

And perjured out his Claim.

"Untrue! untrue!" Then, through and through

The weary weeks he worked the rack;

But March had youth, ere with the Truth

He dealt the final whack.

"And hast thou slain the Waggawock

Come to my arms, my Beamish Boy!

O Coleridge, J.! Hoorah! hooray!"

Punch chortled in his joy.

Shirley Brooks.

THE VULTURE AND THE HUSBANDMAN

(By Louisa Caroline)

THE rain was raining cheerfully

As if it had been May,

The Senate House appeared inside

Unusually gay;

And this was strange, because it was

A Viva-Voce day.

The men were sitting sulkily,

Their paper work was done,

They wanted much to go away

To ride or row or run;

"It's very rude," they said, "to keep

Us here and spoil our fun."

The papers they had finished lay

In piles of blue and white,

They answered everything they could,

And wrote with all their might,

But though they wrote it all by rote,

They did not write it right.

The Vulture and the Husbandman

Besides these piles did stand;

They wept like anything to see

The work they had in hand:

"If this were only finished up,"

Said they, "it would be grand!"

"If seven D's or seven C's

We give to all the crowd,

Do you suppose," the Vulture said,

"That we could get them ploughed?"

"I think so," said the Husbandman,

"But pray don't talk so loud."

"O Undergraduates, come up,"

The Vulture did beseech,

"And let us see if you can learn

As well as we can teach;

We cannot do with more than two,

To have a word with each."

Two Undergraduates came up,

And slowly took a seat;

They knit their brows and bit their thumbs,

As if they found them sweet;

And this is odd, because, you know,

Thumbs are not good to eat.

"The time has come," the Vulture said,

"To talk of many things,

Of Accidence and Adjectives,

And names of Jewish kings;

How many notes a sackbut has,

And whether shawms have strings."

"Please, Sir," the Undergraduates said,

Turning a little blue,

"We did not know that was the sort

Of thing we had to do."

"We thank you much," the Vulture said;

"Send up another two."

Two more came up, and then two more,

And more, and more, and more,

And some looked upwards at the roof,

And some down upon the floor,

But none were any wiser than

The pair that went before.

"I weep for you," the Vulture said;

"I deeply sympathize!"

With sobs and tears he gave them all

D's of the largest size,

While at the Husbandman he winked

One of his streaming eyes.

"I think," observed the Husbandman,

"We're getting on too quick;

Are we not putting down the D's

A little bit too thick?"

The Vulture said with much disgust,

"Their answers make me sick."

"Now, Undergraduates," he cried,

"Our fun is nearly done;

Will anybody else come up?"

But answer came there none;

But this was scarcely odd, because

They'd ploughed them every one!

A. C. Hilton.

AFTER A. C. SWINBURNE

GILLIAN

JACK and Jille

I have made me an end of the moods of maidens,

I have loosed me, and leapt from the links of love;

From the kiss that cloys and desire that deadens,

The woes that madden, the words that move.

In the dim last days of a spent September,

When fruits are fallen, and flies are fain;

Before you forget, and while I remember,

I cry as I shall cry never again.

Went up a hylle

Where the strong fell faints in the lazy levels

Of misty meadows, and streams that stray;

We raised us at eve from our rosy revels,

With the faces aflame for the death of the day;

With pale lips parted, and sighs that shiver,

Low lids that cling to the last of love:

We left the levels, we left the river,

And turned us and toiled to the air above.

To fetch a paile of water,

By the sad sweet springs that have salved our sorrow,

The fates that haunt us, the grief that grips—

Where we walk not to-day nor shall walk not to-morrow—

The wells of Lethe for wearied lips.

With souls nor shaken with tears nor laughter,

With limp knees loosed as of priests that pray,

We bowed us and bent to the white well-water,

We dipped and we drank it and bore away.

Jack felle downe

The low light trembled on languid lashes,

The haze of your hair on my mouth was blown,

Our love flashed fierce from its fading ashes,

As night's dim net on the day was thrown.

What was it meant for, or made for, that minute,

But that our lives in delight should be dipt?

Was it yours, or my fault, or fate's, that in it

Our frail feet faltered, our steep steps slipt.

And brake his crowne, and Jille came tumblynge after.

Our linked hands loosened and lapsed in sunder,

Love from our limbs as a shift was shed,

But paused a moment, to watch with wonder

The pale pained body, the bursten head.

While our sad souls still with regrets are riven,

While the blood burns bright on our bruised brows,

I have set you free, and I stand forgiven—

And now I had better go call my cows.

Anonymous.

ATALANTA IN CAMDEN-TOWN

AY, 'twas here, on this spot,

In that summer of yore,

Atalanta did not

Vote my presence a bore,

Nor reply to my tenderest talk, "She had heard all that nonsense before."

She'd the brooch I had bought

And the necklace and sash on,

And her heart, as I thought,

Was alive to my passion;

And she'd done up her hair in the style that the Empress had brought into fashion.

I had been to the play

With my pearl of a Peri—

But, for all I could say,

She declared she was weary,

That "the place was so crowded and hot, and she couldn't abide that Dundreary."

Then I thought, "'Tis for me

That she whines and she whimpers!"

And it soothed me to see

Those sensational simpers,

And I said, "This is scrumptious,"—a phrase I had learned from the Devonshire shrimpers.

And I vowed, "'Twill be said

I'm a fortunate fellow,

When the breakfast is spread,

When the topers are mellow,

When the foam of the bird-cake is white and the fierce orange-blossoms are yellow!"

Oh, that languishing yawn!

Oh, those eloquent eyes!

I was drunk with the dawn

Of a splendid surmise surmise—

I was stung by a look, I was slain by a tear, by a tempest of sighs.

And I whispered, "'Tis time!

Is not Love at its deepest?

Shall we squander Life's prime,

While thou waitest and weepest?

Let us settle it, License or Banns?—though undoubtedly Banns are the cheapest."

"Ah, my Hero!" said I,

"Let me be thy Leander!"

But I lost her reply—

Something ending with "gander"—

For the omnibus rattled so loud that no mortal could quite understand her.

Lewis Carroll.

THE MANLET

IN stature the Manlet was dwarfish—

No burly big Blunderbore he:

And he wearily gazed on the crawfish

His Wifelet had dressed for his tea.

"Now reach me, sweet Atom, my gunlet,

And hurl the old shoelet for luck;

Let me hie to the bank of the runlet

And shoot thee a Duck!"

She has reached him his minnikin gunlet:

She has hurled the old shoelet for luck;

She is busily baking a bunlet,

To welcome him home with his duck.

On he speeds, never wasting a wordlet,

Though thoughtlets cling closely as wax,

To the spot where the beautiful birdlet

So quietly quacks.

Where the Lobsterlet lurks and the Crablet

So slowly and creepily crawls:

Where the Dolphin's at home and the Dablet

Pays long ceremonious calls:

Where the Grublet is sought by the Froglet:

Where the Frog is pursued by the Duck:

Where the Ducklet is chased by the Doglet—

So runs the world's luck.

He has loaded with bullet and powder:

His footfall is noiseless as air:

But the Voices grow louder and louder

And bellow and bluster and blare.

They bristle before him and after,

They flutter above and below,

Shrill shriekings of lubberly laughter,

Weird wailings of woe!

They echo without him, within him:

They thrill through his whiskers and beard:

Like a teetotum seeming to spin him,

With sneers never hitherto sneered.

"Avengement," they cry, "on our Foelet!

Let the Manikin weep for our wrongs!

Let us drench him from toplet to toelet

With nursery songs!

"He shall muse upon Hey! Diddle! Diddle!

On the Cow that surmounted the Moon!

He shall rave of the Cat and the Fiddle,

And the Dish that eloped with the Spoon:

And his soul shall be sad for the Spider,

When Miss Muffett was sipping her whey,

That so tenderly sat down beside her,

And scared her away!

"The music of Midsummer-madness

Shall sting him with many a bite,

Till, in rapture of rollicking sadness,

He shall groan with a gloomy delight;

He shall swathe him like mists of the morning,

In platitudes luscious and limp,

Such as deck, with a deathless adorning,

The Song of the Shrimp!

"When the Ducklet's dark doom is decided,

We will trundle him home in a trice:

And the banquet so plainly provided

Shall round into rosebuds and rice:

In a blaze of pragmatic invention

He shall wrestle with Fate and shall reign:

But he has not a friend fit to mention,

So hit him again!"

He has shot it, the delicate darling!

And the Voices have ceased from their strife:

Not a whisper of sneering or snarling,

As he carries it home to his wife:

Then, cheerily champing the bunlet

His spouse was so skilful to bake,

He hies him once more to the runlet,

To fetch her the Drake!

Lewis Carroll.

IF!

IF life were never bitter,

And love were always sweet,

Then who would care to borrow

A moral from to-morrow—

If Thames would always glitter,

And joy would ne'er retreat,

If life were never bitter,

And love were always sweet!

If care were not the waiter

Behind a fellow's chair,

When easy-going sinners

Sit down to Richmond dinners,

And life's swift stream flows straighter,

By Jove, it would be rare,

If care were not the waiter

Behind a fellow's chair.

If wit were always radiant,

And wine were always iced,

And bores were kicked out straightway

Through a convenient gateway;

Then down the year's long gradient

'Twere sad to be enticed,

If wit were always radiant,

And wine were always iced.

Mortimer Collins.

THE MAID OF THE MEERSCHAUM

NUDE nymph, when from Neuberg's I led her

In velvet enshrined and encased,

When with rarest Virginia I fed her,

And pampered each maidenly taste

On "Old Judge" and "Lone Jack" and brown "Bird's-eye,"

The best that a mortal might get—

Did she know how, from whiteness of curds, I

Should turn her to jet?

She was blonde and impassive and stately

When first our acquaintance began,

When she smiled from the pipe-bowl sedately

On the "Stunt" who was scarcely a man.

But labuntur anni fugaces,

And changed in due season were we,

For she wears the blackest of faces,

And I'm a D. C.

Unfailing the comfort she gave me

In the days when I owned to a heart,

When the charmers that used to enslave me

For Home or the Hills would depart.

She was Polly or Agnes or Kitty

(Whoever pro tem. was my flame),

And I found her most ready to pity,

And—always the same.

At dawn, when the pig broke from cover,

At noon, when the pleaders were met,

She clung to the lips of her lover

As never live maiden did yet;

At the Bund, when I waited the far light

That brought me my Mails o'er the main—

At night, when the tents, in the starlight,

Showed white on the plain.

And now, though each finely cut feature

Is flattened and polished away,

I hold her the loveliest creature

That ever was fashioned from clay.

Let an epitaph thus, then, be wrought for

Her tomb, when the smash shall arrive:

"Hic jacet the life's love I bought for

Rupees twenty-five."

Rudyard Kipling.

QUAERITUR

DAWN that disheartens the desolate dunes,

Dulness of day as it bursts on the beach,

Sea-wind that shrillest the thinnest of tunes,

What is the wisdom thy wailings would teach?

Far, far away, down the foam-frescoed reach,

Where ravening rocks cleave the crest of the seas,

Sigheth the sound of thy sonorous speech,

As gray gull and guillemot gather their fees;

Taking toll of the beasts that are bred in the seas.

Foam-flakes fly farther than faint eyes can follow—

Drop down the desolate dunes and are done;

Fleeter than foam-flowers flitteth the Swallow,

Sheer for the sweets of the South and the Sun.

What is thy tale? O thou treacherous Swallow!

Sing me thy secret, Beloved of the Skies,

That I may gather my garments and follow—

Flee on the path of thy pinions and rise

Where strong storms cease and the weary wind dies.

Lo! I am bound with the chains of my sorrow;

Swallow, swift Swallow, ah, wait for a while!

Stay but a moment—it may be to-morrow

Chains shall be severed and sad souls shall smile!

Only a moment—a mere minute's measure—

How shall it hurt such a swift one as thou?

Pitiless Swallow, full flushed for thy pleasure,

Canst thou not even one instant allow

To weak-winged wanderers? Wait for me now.

Rudyard Kipling.

A MELTON MOWBRAY PORK-PIE

STRANGE pie that is almost a passion,

O passion immoral for pie!

Unknown are the ways that they fashion,

Unknown and unseen of the eye.

The pie that is marbled and mottled,

The pie that digests with a sigh:

For all is not Bass that is bottled,

And all is not pork that is pie.

Richard Le Gallienne.

FOAM AND FANGS

O   NYMPH with the nicest of noses;

And finest and fairest of forms;

Lips ruddy and ripe as the roses

That sway and that surge in the storms;

O buoyant and blooming Bacchante,

Of fairer than feminine face,

Rush, raging as demon of Dante—

To this, my embrace!

The foam and the fangs and the flowers,

The raving and ravenous rage

Of a poet as pinion'd in powers

As condor confined in a cage!

My heart in a haystack I've hidden,

As loving and longing I lie,

Kiss open thine eyelids unbidden—

I gaze and I die!

I've wander'd the wild waste of slaughter,

I've sniffed up the sepulchre's scent,

I've doated on devilry's daughter,

And murmur'd much more than I meant;

I've paused at Penelope's portal,

So strange are the sights that I've seen,

And mighty's the mind of the mortal

Who knows what I mean.

Walter Parke.

A SONG OF RENUNCIATION

IN the days of my season of salad,

When the down was as dew on my cheek,

And for French I was bred on the ballad,

For Greek on the writers of Greek,—

Then I sang of the rose that is ruddy,

Of "pleasure that winces and stings,"

Of white women, and wine that is bloody,

And similar things.

Of Delight that is dear as Desi-er,

And Desire that is dear as Delight;

Of the fangs of the flame that is fi-er,

Of the bruises of kisses that bite;

Of embraces that clasp and that sever,

Of blushes that flutter and flee

Round the limbs of Dolores, whoever

Dolores may be.

I sang of false faith that is fleeting

As froth of the swallowing seas,

Time's curse that is fatal as Keating

Is fatal to amorous fleas;

Of the wanness of woe that is whelp of

The lust that is blind as a bat—

By the help of my Muse and the help of

The relative THAT.

Panatheist, bruiser and breaker

Of kings and the creatures of kings,

I shouted on Freedom to shake her

Feet loose of the fetter that clings;

Far rolling my ravenous red eye,

And lifting a mutinous lid,

To all monarchs and matrons I said I

Would shock them—and did.

Thee I sang, and thy loves, O Thalassian,

O "noble and nude and antique!"

Unashamed in the "fearless old fashion,"

Ere washing was done by the week;

When the "roses and rapture" that girt you

Were visions of delicate vice,

And the "lilies and languors of virtue"

Not nearly so nice.

O delights of the time of my teething,

Felise, Fragoletta, Yolande!

Foam-yeast of a youth in its seething

On blasted and blithering sand!

Snake-crowned on your tresses and belted

With blossoms that coil and decay,

Ye are gone; ye are lost; ye are melted

Like ices in May.

Hushed now is the bibulous bubble

Of "lithe and lascivious" throats;

Long stript and extinct is the stubble

Of hoary and harvested oats;

From the sweets that are sour as the sorrel's

The bees have abortively swarmed;

And Algernon's earlier morals

Are fairly reformed.

I have written a loyal Armada,

And posed in a Jubilee pose;

I have babbled of babies and played a

New tune on the turn of their toes;

Washed white from the stain of Astarte,

My books any virgin may buy;

And I hear I am praised by a party

Called Something Mackay!

When erased are the records, and rotten

The meshes of memory's net;

When the grace that forgives has forgotten

The things that are good to forget;

When the trill of my juvenile trumpet

Is dead and its echoes are dead;

Then the laurel shall lie on the crumpet

And crown of my head!

Owen Seaman.

NEPHELIDIA

FROM the depth of the dreamy decline of the dawn through a notable nimbus of nebulous moonshine,

Pallid and pink as the palm of the flag-flower that flickers with fear of the flies as they float,

Are they looks of our lovers that lustrously lean from a marvel of mystic miraculous moonshine,

These that we feel in the blood of our blushes that thicken and threaten with throbs through the throat?

Thicken and thrill as a theatre thronged at appeal of an actor's appalled agitation,

Fainter with fear of the fires of the future than pale with the promise of pride in the past;

Flushed with the famishing fulness of fever that reddens with radiance of rathe recreation,

Gaunt as the ghastliest of glimpses that gleam through the gloom of the gloaming when ghosts go aghast?

Nay, for the nick of the tick of the time is a tremulous touch on the temples of terror,

Strained as the sinews yet strenuous with strife of the dead who is dumb as the dust-heaps of death;

Surely no soul is it, sweet as the spasm of erotic emotional exquisite error,

Bathed in the balms of beatified bliss, beatific itself by beatitude's breath.

Surely no spirit or sense of a soul that was soft to the spirit and soul of our senses

Sweetens the stress of surprising suspicion that sobs in the semblance and sound of a sigh;

Only this oracle opens Olympian, in mystical moods and triangular tenses,—

"Life is the lust of a lamp for the light that is dark till the dawn of the day when we die."

Mild is the mirk and monotonous music of memory, melodiously mute as it may be,

While the hope in the heart of a hero is bruised by the breach of men's rapiers, resigned to the rod;

Made meek as a mother whose bosom-beats bound with the bliss-bringing bulk of a balm-breathing baby,

As they grope through the grave-yard of creeds, under skies growing green at a groan for the grimness of God.

Blank is the book of his bounty beholden of old, and its binding is blacker than bluer:

Out of blue into black is the scheme of the skies, and their dews are the wine of the bloodshed of things;

Till the darkling desire of delight shall be free as a fawn that is freed from the fangs that pursue her,

Till the heart-beats of hell shall be hushed by a hymn from the hunt that has harried the kennel of kings.

Algernon Charles Swinburne.

THE LAY OF MACARONI

AS a wave that steals when the winds are stormy

From creek to cove of the curving shore,

Buffeted, blown, and broken before me,

Scattered and spread to its sunlit core:

As a dove that dips in the dark of maples

To sip the sweetness of shelter and shade,

I kneel in thy nimbus, O noon of Naples,

I bathe in thy beauty, by thee embayed.

What is it ails me that I should sing of her?

The queen of the flashes and flames that were!

Yea, I have felt the shuddering sting of her,

The flower-sweet throat and the hands of her!

I have swayed and sung to the sound of her psalters,

I have danced her dances of dizzy delight,

I have hallowed mine hair to the horns of her altars,

Between the nightingale's song and the night!

What is it, Queen, that now I should do for thee?

What is it now I should ask at thine hands?

Blow of the trumpets thine children once blew for thee?

Break from thine feet and thine bosom the bands?

Nay, as sweet as the songs of Leone Leoni,

And gay as her garments of gem-sprinkled gold,

She gives me mellifluous, mild macaroni,

The choice of her children when cheeses are old!

And over me hover, as if by the wings of it,

Frayed in the furnace by flame that is fleet,

The curious coils and the strenuous strings of it,

Dropping, diminishing down, as I eat;

Lo! and the beautiful Queen, as she brings of it,

Lifts me the links of the limitless chain,

Bidding mine mouth chant the splendidest things of it,

Out of the wealth of my wonderful brain!

Behold! I have done it: my stomach is smitten

With sweets of the surfeit her hands have unrolled.

Italia, mine cheeks with thine kisses are bitten,

I am broken with beauty, stabbed, slaughtered, and sold!

No man of thy millions is more macaronied,

Save mighty Mazzini, than musical Me;

The souls of the Ages shall stand as astonied,

And faint in the flame I am fanning for thee!

Bayard Taylor.

AFTER BRET HARTE

THE HEATHEN PASS-EE

By Bred Hard

WHICH I wish to remark,

And my language is plain,

That for plots that are dark

And not always in vain

The heathen Pass-ee is peculiar,

And the same I would rise to explain.

I would also premise

That the term of Pass-ee

Most fitly applies,

As you probably see,

To one whose vocation is passing

The ordinary B. A. degree.

Tom Crib was his name,

And I shall not deny

In regard to the same

What that name might imply;

But his face it was trustful and childlike,

And he had a most innocent eye.

Upon April the First

The Little-Go fell,

And that was the worst

Of the gentleman's sell,

For he fooled the Examining Body

In a way I'm reluctant to tell.

The candidates came,

And Tom Crib soon appeared;

It was Euclid. The same

Was "the subject he feared;"

But he smiled as he sat by the table,

With a smile that was wary and weird.

Yet he did what he could,

And the papers he showed

Were remarkably good,

And his countenance glowed

With pride when I met him soon after

As he walked down the Trumpington Road.

We did not find him out,

Which I bitterly grieve,

For I've not the least doubt

That he'd placed up his sleeve

Mr. Todhunter's excellent Euclid,

The same with intent to deceive.

But I shall not forget

How the next day at two

A stiff paper was set

By Examiner U.,

On Euripides' tragedy, Bacchae,

A subject Tom partially knew.

But the knowledge displayed

By that heathen Pass-ee,

And the answers he made,

Were quite frightful to see,

For he rapidly floored the whole paper

By about twenty minutes to three.

Then I looked up at U.,

And he gazed upon me;

I observed "This won't do;"

He replied, "Goodness me;

We are fooled by this artless young person,"

And he sent for that heathen Pass-ee.

The scene that ensued

Was disgraceful to view,

For the floor it was strewed

With a tolerable few

Of the "tips" that Tom Crib had been hiding

For the subject he "partially knew."

On the cuff of his shirt

He had managed to get

What we hoped had been dirt,

But which proved, I regret,

To be notes on the rise of the Drama,

A question invariably set.

In his various coats

We proceeded to seek,

Where we found sundry notes

And—with sorrow I speak speak—

One of Bohn's publications, so useful

To the student in Latin or Greek.

In the crown of his cap

Were the Furies and Fates,

And a delicate map

Of the Dorian States;

And we found in his palms, which were hollow,

What are frequent in palms,—that is dates.

Which I wish to remark,

And my language is plain,

That for plots that are dark

And not always in vain

The heathen Pass-ee is peculiar,

Which the same I am free to maintain.

A. C. Hilton.

DE TEA FABULA

Plain Language from Truthful James

DO I sleep? Do I dream?

Am I hoaxed by a scout?

Are things what they seem,

Or is Sophists about?

Is our το τι ηυ ειναι a failure, or is Robert Browning played out?

Which expressions like these

May be fairly applied

By a party who sees

A Society skied

Upon tea that the Warden of Keble had biled with legitimate pride.

'Twas November the third,

And I says to Bill Nye,

"Which it's true what I've heard:

If you're, so to speak, fly,

There's a chance of some tea and cheap culture, the sort recommended as High."

Which I mentioned its name,

And he ups and remarks:

"If dress-coats is the game

And pow-wow in the Parks,

Then I'm nuts on Sordello and Hohenstiel-Schwangau and similar Snarks."

Now the pride of Bill Nye

Cannot well be express'd;

For he wore a white tie

And a cut-away vest:

Says I, "Solomon's lilies ain't in it, and they was reputed well dress'd."

But not far did we wend,

When we saw Pippa pass

On the arm of a friend

—Dr. Furnivall 'twas,

And he wore in his hat two half-tickets for London, return, second-class.

"Well," I thought, "this is odd."

But we came pretty quick

To a sort of a quad

That was all of red brick,

And I says to the porter,—"R. Browning: free passes; and kindly look slick."

But says he, dripping tears

In his check handkerchief,

"That symposium's career's

Been regrettably brief,

For it went all its pile upon crumpets and busted on gunpowder leaf!"

Then we tucked up the sleeves

Of our shirts (that were biled),

Which the reader perceives

That our feelings were riled,

And we went for that man till his mother had doubted the traits of her child.

Which emotions like these

Must be freely indulged

By a party who sees

A Society bulged

On a reef the existence of which its prospectus had never divulged.

But I ask,—Do I dream?

Has it gone up the spout?

Are things what they seem,

Or is Sophists about?

Is our το τι ηυ ειναι a failure, or is Robert Browning played out?

A. T. Quiller-Couch.

AFTER AUSTIN DOBSON

THE PRODIGALS

(Dedicated to Mr. Chaplin, M.P., and Mr. Richard Power, M.P., and 223 who followed him)

MINISTERS! you, most serious,

Critics and statesmen of all degrees,

Hearken awhile to the motion of us—

Senators keen for the Epsom breeze!

Nothing we ask of poets or fees;

Worry us not with objections, pray!

Lo, for the speaker's wig we seize—

Give us, ah! give us the Derby Day.

Scots most prudent, penurious!

Irishmen busy as bumblebees!

Hearken awhile to the motion of us—

Senators keen for the Epsom breeze!

For Sir Joseph's sake, and his owner's, please!

(Solomon raced like fun, they say.)

Lo, for we beg on our bended knees—

Give us, ah! give us the Derby Day.

Campbell—Asheton be generous!

(But they voted such things were not the cheese.)

Sullivan, hear us, magnanimous!

(But Sullivan thought with their enemies.)

And shortly they got both of help and ease,

For a mad majority crowded to say,

"Debate we've drunk to the dregs and lees:

Give us, ah! give us the Derby Day."

ENVOI:

Prince, most just was the motion of these,

And many were seen by the dusty way,

Shouting glad to the Epsom breeze

Give us, ah! give us the Derby Day.

Anonymous.

AFTER ANDREW LANG

BO-PEEP

UNHAPPY is Bo-Peep,

Her tears profusely flow,

Because her precious sheep

Have wandered to and fro,

Have chosen far to go,

For "pastures new" inclined,

(See Lycidas)—and lo!

Their tails are still behind!

How catch them while asleep?

(I think Gaboriau

For machinations deep

Beats Conan Doyle and Co.)

But none a hint bestow

Save this, on how to find

The flocks she misses so—

"Their tails are still behind!"

This simple faith to keep

Will mitigate her woe,

She is not Joan, to leap

To arms against the foe

Or conjugate τὑρτω;

Nay, peacefully resigned

She waits, till time shall show

Their tails are still behind!

Bo-Peep, rejoice! Although

Your sheep appear unkind,

Rejoice at last to know

Their tails are still behind!

Anthony C. Deane.

AFTER W. E. HENLEY

IMITATION

CALM and implacable,

Eying disdainfully the world beneath,

Sat Humpty-Dumpty on his mural eminence

In solemn state:

And I relate his story

In verse unfettered by the bothering restrictions of rhyme or metre,

In verse (or "rhythm," as I prefer to call it)

Which, consequently, is far from difficult to write.

He sat. And at his feet

The world passed on—the surging crowd

Of men and women, passionate, turgid, dense,

Keenly alert, lethargic, or obese.

(Those two lines scan!)

Among the rest

He noted Jones; Jones with his Roman nose,

His eyebrows—the left one streaked with a dash of gray—

And yellow boots.

Not that Jones

Has anything in particular to do with the story;

But a descriptive phrase

Like the above shows that the writer is

A Master of Realism.

Let us proceed. Suddenly from his seat

Did Humpty-Dumpty slip. Vainly he clutched

The impalpable air. Down and down,

Right to the foot of the wall,

Right on to the horribly hard pavement that ran beneath it,

Humpty-Dumpty, the unfortunate Humpty-Dumpty,

Fell.

And him, alas! no equine agency,

Him no power of regal battalions—

Resourceful, eager, strenuous—

Could ever restore to the lofty eminence

Which once was his.

Still he lies on the very identical

Spot where he fell—lies, as I said on the ground,

Shamefully and conspicuously abased!

Anthony C. Deane.

AFTER R. L. STEVENSON

BED DURING EXAMS

I   USED to go to bed at night,

And only worked when day was light.

But now 'tis quite the other way,

I never get to bed till day.

I look up from my work and see

The morning light shine in on me,

And listen to the warning knell—

The tinkle of the rising bell.

And does there not seem cause to weep,

When I should like so much to sleep,

I have to sing this mournful lay,

I cannot get to bed till day?

Clara Warren Vail.

AFTER OSCAR WILDE

MORE IMPRESSIONS

(La Fuite des Oies)

TO outer senses they are geese,

Dull drowsing by a weedy pool;

But try the impression trick. Cool! Cool!

Snow-slumbering sentinels of Peace!

Deep silence on the shadowy flood,

Save rare sharp stridence (that means "quack"),

Low amber light in Ariel track

Athwart the dun (that means the mud).

And suddenly subsides the sun,

Bulks mystic, ghostly, thrid the gloom

(That means the white geese waddling home),

And darkness reigns! (See how it's done?)

Oscuro Wildgoose.

NURSERY RHYMES À LA MODE

(Our nurseries will soon be too cultured to admit the old rhymes in their Philistine and unæsthetic garb. They may be redressed somewhat on this model)

OH, but she was dark and shrill,

(Hey-de-diddle and hey-de-dee!)

The cat that (on the first April)

Played the fiddle on the lea.

Oh, and the moon was wan and bright,

(Hey-de-diddle and hey-de-dee!)

The Cow she looked nor left nor right,

But took it straight at a jump, pardie!

The hound did laugh to see this thing,

(Hey-de-diddle and hey-de-dee!)

As it was parlous wantoning,

(Ah, good my gentles, laugh not ye,)

And underneath a dreesome moon

Two lovers fled right piteouslie;

A spooney plate with a plated spoon,

(Hey-de-diddle and hey-de-dee!)

POSTSCRIPT

Then blame me not, altho' my verse

Sounds like an echo of C. S. C.

Since still they make ballads that worse and worse

Savor of diddle and hey-de-dee.

Anonymous.

A MAUDLE-IN BALLAD

(To his Lily)

MY lank limp lily, my long lithe lily,

My languid lily-love fragile and thin,

With dank leaves dangling and flower-flap chilly,

That shines like the shin of a Highland gilly!

Mottled and moist as a cold toad's skin!

Lustrous and leper-white, splendid and splay!

Art thou not Utter and wholly akin

To my own wan soul and my own wan chin,

And my own wan nose-tip, tilted to sway

The peacock's feather, sweeter than sin,

That I bought for a halfpenny yesterday?

My long lithe lily, my languid lily,

My lank limp lily-love, how shall I win—

Woo thee to wink at me? Silver lily,

How shall I sing to thee, softly or shrilly?

What shall I weave for thee—what shall I spin—

Rondel, or rondeau, or virelai?

Shall I buzz like a bee with my face thrust in

Thy choice, chaste chalice, or choose me a tin

Trumpet, or touchingly, tenderly play

On the weird bird-whistle, sweeter than sin,

That I bought for a halfpenny yesterday.

My languid lily, my lank limp lily,

My long lithe lily-love, men may grin—

Say that I'm soft and supremely silly—

What care I while you whisper stilly;

What care I while you smile? Not a pin!

While you smile, you whisper—'Tis sweet to decay?

I have watered with chlorodine, tears of chagrin,

The churchyard mould I have planted thee in,

Upside down in an intense way,

In a rough red flower-pot, sweeter than sin,

That I bought for a halfpenny yesterday.

Punch.

QUITE THE CHEESE

(By a Wilde Æsthete)

THERE was once a maiden who loved a cheese;

Sing, hey! potatoes and paint!

She could eat a pound and a half with ease

Oh, the odorous air was faint!

What was the cheese that she loved the best?

Sing, hey, red pepper and rags!

You will find it out if you read the rest;

Oh, the horrors of frowning crags!

Came lovers to woo her from every land—

Sing, hey! fried bacon and files!

They asked for her heart, but they meant her hand,

Oh, the joy of the Happy Isles.

A haughty old Don from Oporto came;

Sing, hey! new carrots and nails!

The Duke of GORGONZOLA, his famous name,

Oh, the lusciously-scented gales!

Lord STILTON belonged to a mighty line!

Sing, hey! salt herrings and stones!

He was "Blue" as chine—his taste divine!

Oh, the sweetness of dulcet tones.

Came stout DOUBLE GLO'STER—a man and wife,

Sing, hey! post pillars and pies!

And the son was SINGLE, and fair as fate;

Oh, the purple of sunset skies!

DE CAMEMBERT came from his sunny France,

Sing, hey! pork cutlets and pearls!

He would talk sweet nothings, and sing and dance,

Oh, the sighs of the soft sweet girls.

Came GRUYÈRE so pale! a most hole-y man!

Sing, hey! red sandstone and rice!

But the world saw through him as worldings can,

Oh, the breezes from Isles of Spice.

But the maiden fair loved no cheese but one!

Sing, hey! acrostics and ale!

Save for SINGLE GLO'STER she love had none!

Oh, the roses on fair cheeks pale!

He was fair and single—and so was she!

Sing, hey! tomatoes and tar!

And so now you know which it is to be!

Oh, the aid of a lucky star!

They toasted the couple the livelong night,

Sing, hey! cast iron and carp!

And engaged a poet this song to write.

Oh, the breathing Æolian harp!

So he wrote this ballad at vast expense!

Sing, hey! pump-handles and peas!

And, though you may think it devoid of sense,

Oh, he fancies it QUITE THE CHEESE!

H. C. Waring.

AFTER WILLIAM WATSON

THE THREE MICE

THREE mice—three sightless mice—averse from strife,

Peaceful descendants of the Armenian race,

Intent on finding some secluded place

Wherein to pass their inoffensive life;

How little dreamt they of that farmer's wife—

The Porte's malicious minion—giving chase,

And in a moment—ah, the foul disgrace!—

Shearing their tails off with a carving-knife!

And oh, my unemotional countrymen,

Who choose to dally and to temporize,

When once before with vitriolic pen

I told the tale of Turkish infamies,

Once more I call to vengeance,—now as then,

Shouting the magic word "Atrocities!"

Anthony C. Deane.

AFTER KIPLING

FUZZY WUZZY LEAVES US

WE'VE been visited by men across the seas,

And some of them could write, and some could not;

The English, French, and German—whom you please,

But Kipling was the finest of the lot.

In sooth, we're loath to lose him from our list;

Though he's not been wholly kind in all his dealings;

Indeed from first to last I must insist,

He has played the cat and banjo with our feelings.

But here's to you, Mr. Kipling, with your comments and your slurs;

You're a poor, benighted Briton, but the Prince of Raconteurs!

We'll give you your certificate, and if you want it signed,

Come back and have a fling at us whenever you're inclined!

You harrowed us with murder and with blood;

You dipped us deep in Simla's petty guile;

Yet we have found ourselves misunderstood

When we served you a sensation in our style;

And though you saw some grewsome pictures through

The Windy City's magnifying lens,

Yet we took it just a little hard of you,

A-objecting to the slaughter of our pens!

But here's to you, Mr. Kipling, and the boys of Lung-tung-pen,

And all we have to ask you is, make 'em kill again!

For though we're crude in some things here, which fact I much deplore,

We know genius when we see it, and we're not afraid of gore.

And yet we love you best on Greenough Hill,

By Bisesa and her sisters dark perplext;

In your sermons, which have power to lift and thrill

Just because they have the heart of man as text;

And when you bend, the little ones to please,

With Bagheera and Baloo at hide and seek,

Oh! a happy hour with Mowgli in the trees

Sets a little chap a-dreaming for a week.

So, here's to you, Mr. Kipling, and to Mowgli and Old Kaa,

And to her who loved and waited where the Gates of Sorrow are;

For where is brush more potent to paint since Art began

The white love of a Woman and the red blood of a Man.

So, since to us you've given such delight,

We hope that you won't think us quite so bad.

You're all hot sand and ginger, when you write,

But we're sure you're only shamming when you're mad.

Yet so you leave us Gunga Din's salaam,

So you incarnate Mulvaney on a spree;

Mr. Kipling, sir, we do not "care a damn"

For the comments you may make on such as we!

Then here's to you, Mr. Kipling, and Columbia avers

You're a poor, benighted Briton, but the Prince of Raconteurs.

You may scathe us, and may leave us; still in our hearts will stay

The man who made Mulvaney and the road to Mandalay.

E. P. C.

A BALLAD

(In the manner of R-dy-rd K-pl-ng)

AS I was walkin' the jungle round, a-killin' of tigers an' time;

I seed a kind of an author man a writin' a rousin' rhyme;

'E was writin' a mile a minute an' more, an' I sez to 'im, "'Oo are you?"

Sez 'e, "I'm a poet—'er majesty's poet—soldier an' sailor, too!"

An 'is poem began in Ispahan an' ended in Kalamazoo,

It 'ad army in it, an' navy in it, an' jungle sprinkled through,

For 'e was a poet—'er majesty's poet—soldier an' sailor, too!

An' after, I met 'im all over the world, a doin' of things a host;

'E 'ad one foot planted in Burmah, an' one on the Gloucester coast;

'E's 'alf a sailor an' 'alf a whaler, 'e's captain, cook, and crew,

But most a poet—'er majesty's poet—soldier an' sailor too!

'E's often Scot an' 'e's often not, but 'is work is never through,

For 'e laughs at blame, an' 'e writes for fame, an' a bit for revenoo,—

Bein' a poet—'er majesty's poet—soldier an' sailor too!

'E'll take you up to the Ar'tic zone, 'e'll take you down to the Nile,

'E'll give you a barrack ballad in the Tommy Atkins style,

Or 'e'll sing you a Dipsy Chantey, as the bloomin' bo'suns do,

For 'e is a poet—'er majesty's poet—soldier an' sailor too.

An' there isn't no room for others, an' there's nothin' left to do;

'E 'as sailed the main from the 'Orn to Spain, 'e 'as tramped the jungle through,

An' written up all there is to write—soldier an' sailor, too!

There are manners an' manners of writin', but 'is is the proper way,

An' it ain't so hard to be a bard if you'll imitate Rudyard K.;

But sea an' shore an' peace an' war, an' everything else in view—

'E 'as gobbled the lot!—'er majesty's poet—soldier a'n sailor, too.

'E's not content with 'is Indian 'ome, 'e's looking for regions new,

In another year 'e'll 'ave swept 'em clear, an' what'll the rest of us do?

'E's crowdin' us out!—'er majesty's poet—soldier an' sailor too!

Guy Wetmore Carryl.

JACK AND JILL

HERE is the tale—and you must make the most of it!

Here is the rhyme—ah, listen and attend!

Backwards—forwards—read it all and boast of it

If you are anything the wiser at the end!

Now Jack looked up—it was time to sup, and the bucket was yet to fill;

And Jack looked round for a space and frowned, then beckoned his sister Jill,

And twice he pulled his sister's hair, and thrice he smote her side;

"Ha' done, ha' done with your impudent fun—ha' done, with your games!" she cried;

"You have made mud-pies of a marvellous size—finger and face are black,

You have trodden the Way of the Mire and Clay—now up and wash you, Jack!

Or else, or ever we reach our home, there waiteth an angry dame—

Well you know the weight of her blow—the supperless open shame!

Wash, if you will, on yonder hill—wash if you will, at the spring,—

Or keep your dirt, to your certain hurt, and an imminent walloping!"

"You must wash—you must scrub—you must scrape!" growled Jack, "you must traffic with can and pails,

Nor keep the spoil of the good brown soil in the rim of your fingernails!

The morning path you must tread to your bath—you must wash ere the night descends,

And all for the cause of conventional laws and the soapmaker's dividends!

But if 't is sooth that our meal in truth depends on our washing, Jill,

By the sacred right of our appetite—haste—haste to the top of the hill!"

They have trodden the Way of the Mire and Clay, they have toiled and travelled far,

They have climbed to the brow of the hill-top now, where the bubbling fountains are,

They have taken the bucket and filled it up—yea, filled it up to the brim;

But Jack he sneered at his sister Jill, and Jill she jeered at him:

"What, blown already!" Jack cried out (and his was a biting mirth!)

"You boast indeed of your wonderful speed—but what is the boasting worth?

Now, if you can run as the antelope runs, and if you can turn like a hare,

Come, race me, Jill, to the foot of the hill—and prove your boasting fair!"

"Race? What is a race?" (and a mocking face had Jill as she spake the word)

"Unless for a prize the runner tries? The truth indeed ye heard,

For I can run as the antelope runs, and I can turn like a hare:—

The first one down wins half a crown—and I will race you there!"

"Yea, if for the lesson that you will learn (the lesson of humbled pride),

The price you fix at two-and-six, it shall not be denied;

Come, take your stand at my right hand, for here is the mark we toe:

Now, are you ready, and are you steady? Gird up your petticoats? Go!"

And Jill she ran like a winging bolt, a bolt from the bow released,

But Jack like a stream of the lightning gleam, with its pathway duly greased;

He ran down hill in front of Jill like a summer lightning flash—

Till he suddenly tripped on a stone, or slipped, and fell to the earth with a crash.

Then straight did rise on his wondering eyes the constellations fair,

Arcturus and the Pleiades, the Greater and Lesser Bear,

The swirling rain of a comet's train he saw, as he swiftly fell—

And Jill came tumbling after him with a loud, triumphant yell:

"You have won, you have won, the race is done! And as for the wager laid—

You have fallen down with a broken crown—the half-crown debt is paid!"

They have taken Jack to the room at the back where the family medicines are,

And he lies in bed with a broken head in a halo of vinegar;

While, in that Jill had laughed her fill as her brother fell to earth

She had felt the sting of a walloping—she hath paid the price of her mirth!

Here is the tale—and now you have the whole of it!

Here is the story, well and wisely planned;

Beauty—Duty—these make up the soul of it—

But, ah, my little readers, will you mark and understand?

Anthony C. Deane.

THE LEGEND OF REALISM

THIS is the sorrowful story,

Told when the twilight fails,

And the authors sit together

Reading each other's tales.

"Our fathers lived in the cloudland,

They were Romanticists,

They went down to the valley

To play with the Scientists.

"Our fathers murmured of moonshine,

Our fathers sang to the stars,

Our fathers were playfully prolix,

Our fathers knew nothing of 'pars.'

"Then came the terrible savants,

Nothing of play they knew,

Only—they caught our fathers,

And set them to burrow too.

"Set them to work in the workshop,

With crucible, test, and scales,

Put them in mud-walled prisons,

And—cut up their beautiful tales.

"Now we can read our fathers,

Trenchant, and terse, and cold,

Stooping to dig in dust-heaps,

Sharing the common mold.

"Driving a quill quotidian,

Mending a muddy plot,

Sitting in mud-walled prisons,

Steeping their souls in rot.

"Thus and so do our fathers,

Thus and so must we do,

For we are the slaves of science,

And we are Realists too."

This is the horrible story,

Told as the twilight fails,

And the authors sit together

Reading each other's tales.

Hilda Johnson.

AFTER STEPHEN PHILLIPS

LITTLE JACK HORNER

Littlé Jack Horner sát in án anglé Meditating.

Before we go farther,

Please clearly understand this is blank verse.

If it reads strangely, and the accent falls

In unexpected places, do not dare

To criticise. Remember once for all,

That I and Milton judge questións like that—

Vide my letters to the daily press.

As for my critics—wholesale ignorance

Were a term far too mild to paint their gross

Unintellectuality. So much said,

I start again.

In a cornér he sat,

Remote from comrades. Resolutely his hand

Clutched a delicious pie. Anon his thumb

From thé pasty depth próduced á curránt.

(Excuse another interruption, but

Observe the beauty of that ultimate line!

With equal ease I might have written it

"Produced a currant from the pasty depth,"

But I—and Milton in his better moments—

Prefer to be original.) In his soul

The obsession of his own superior virtue

Grew and prevailed, till at the last he cried:

"I am a Paragon of Excellence!"

Happy Jack Horner, thus fully convinced

Of his remarkable superiority!

And happy readers, who peruse his tale

Retold in such magnificent blank verse!

Anthony C. Deane.

AFTER FIONA McLEOD, W. B.

YEATS, AND OTHERS

THE CULT OF THE CELTIC

WHEN the eager squadrons of day are faint and disbanded,

And under the wind-swept stars the reaper gleans

The petulant passion flowers—although, to be candid,

I haven't the faintest notion what that means—

Surely the Snow-White Bird makes melody sweeter

High in the air than skimming the clogging dust.

(Yes, there's certainly something queer about this metre,

But, as it's Celtic, you and I must take it on trust.)

And oh, the smile of the Slave as he shakes his fetters!

And oh, the Purple Pig as it roams afar!

And oh, the—something or other in capital letters—

As it yields to the magic spell of a wind-swept star!

And look at the tricksy Elves, how they leap and frolic,

Ducking the Bad Banshee in the moonlit pool,

Celtic, yet fully content to be "symbolic,"

Never a thought in their heads about Home Rule!

But the wind-swept star—you notice it has to figure,

Taking an average merely, in each alternate verse

Of every Celtic poem—smiles with a palpable snigger,

While the Yellow Wolf-Hound bays his blighting curse,

And the voices of dead desires in sufferers waken,

And the voice of the limitless lake is harsh and rough,

And the voice of the reader, too, unless I'm mistaken,

Is heard to remark that he's had about enough.

But since the critics have stated with some decision

That stanzas very like these are simply grand,

Showing "a sense of beauty and intimate vision,"

Proving a "Celtic Renaissance" close at hand;

Then, although I admit it's a terrible tax on

Powers like mine, yet I sincerely felt

My task, as an unintelligent Saxon,

Was, at all hazards, to try to copy the Celt!

Anthony C. Deane.

AFTER VARIOUS WRITERS OF

VERS DE SOCIÉTÉ

BEHOLD THE DEEDS!

(Chant Royal)

(Being the Plaint of Adolphe Culpepper Ferguson, Salesman of Fancy Notions, held in durance of his Landlady for a failure to connect on Saturday night)

I

I   WOULD that all men my hard case might know;

How grievously I suffer for no sin:

I, Adolphe Culpepper Ferguson, for lo!

I, of my landlady am locked in.

For being short on this sad Saturday,

Nor having shekels of silver wherewith to pay,

She has turned and is departed with my key;

Wherefore, not even as other boarders free,

I sing (as prisoners to their dungeon stones

When for ten days they expiate a spree):

Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!

II

One night and one day have I wept my woe;

Nor wot I when the morrow doth begin,

If I shall have to write to Briggs & Co.,

To pray them to advance the requisite tin

For ransom of their salesman, that he may

Go forth as other boarders go alway—

As those I hear now flocking from their tea,

Led by the daughter of my landlady

Pianoward. This day for all my moans,

Dry bread and water have been servèd me.

Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!

III

Miss Amabel Jones is musical, and so

The heart of the young he-boarder doth win,

Playing "The Maiden's Prayer," adagio—

That fetcheth him, as fetcheth the banco skin

The innocent rustic. For my part, I pray:

That Badarjewska maid may wait for aye

Ere sits she with a lover, as did we

Once sit together, Amabel! Can it be

That all of that arduous wooing not atones

For Saturday shortness of trade dollars three?

Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!

IV

Yea! she forgets the arm was wont to go

Around her waist. She wears a buckle whose pin

Galleth the crook of the young man's elbow;

I forget not, for I that youth have been.

Smith was aforetime the Lothario gay.

Yet once, I mind me, Smith was forced to stay

Close in his room. Not calm, as I, was he;

But his noise brought no pleasaunce, verily.

Small ease he gat of playing on the bones,

Or hammering on his stove-pipe, that I see.

Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!

V

Thou, for whose fear the figurative crow

I eat, accursed be thou and all thy kin!

Thee will I show up—yea, up will I show

Thy too thick buckwheats, and thy tea too thin

Ay! here I dare thee, ready for the fray!

Thou dost not keep a first-class house, I say!

It does not with the advertisements agree.

Thou lodgest a Briton with a pugaree,

And thou hast harbored Jacobses and Cohns,

Also a Mulligan. Thus denounce I thee!

Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!

ENVOY

Boarders! the worst I have not told to ye:

She hath stole my trousers, that I may not flee

Privily by the window. Hence these groans,

There is no fleeing in a robe de nuit.

Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!

H. C. Bunner.

CULTURE IN THE SLUMS

(Inscribed to an Intense Poet)

"O   CRIKEY Bill!" she ses to me, she ses,

"Look sharp," ses she, "with them there sossiges.

Yea! sharp with them there bags of mysteree!

For lo!" she ses, "for lo! old pal," ses she,

"I'm blooming peckish, neither more or less."

Was it not prime—I leave you all to guess

How prime—to have a Jude in love's distress

Come spooning round, and murmuring balmilee,

"O crikey, Bill!"

For in such rorty wise doth Love express

His blooming views, and asks for your address,

And makes it right, and does the gay and free.

I kissed her—I did so! And her and me

Was pals. And if that ain't good business,

O crikey, Bill!

W. E. Henley.

A BALLADE OF BALLADE-MONGERS

(After the manner of Master François Villon of Paris)

IN Ballades things always contrive to get lost,

And Echo is constantly asking where

Are last year's roses and last year's frost?

And where are the fashions we used to wear?

And what is a "gentleman," and what is a "player"?

Irrelevant questions I like to ask:

Can you reap the tret as well as the tare?

And who was the Man in the Iron Mask?

What has become of the ring I tossed

In the lap of my mistress false and fair?

Her grave is green and her tombstone mossed;

But who is to be the next Lord Mayor?

And where is King William, of Leicester Square?

And who has emptied my hunting flask?

And who is possessed of Stella's hair?

And who was the Man in the Iron Mask?

And what became of the knee I crossed,

And the rod and the child they would not spare?

And what will a dozen herring cost

When herring are sold at three halfpence a pair?

And what in the world is the Golden Stair?

Did Diogenes die in a tub or cask,

Like Clarence, for love of liquor there?

And who was the Man in the Iron Mask?

ENVOY

Poets, your readers have much to bear,

For Ballade-making is no great task,

If you do not remember, I don't much care

Who was the man in the Iron Mask.

Augustus M. Moore

AFTER VARIOUS POPULAR

SONGS

BEAUTIFUL SNOW

(With a drift)

OH! the snow, the beautiful snow

(This is a parody, please, you know;

Over and over again you may meet

Parodies writ on this poem so sweet;

Rhyming, chiming, skipping along,

Comical bards think they do nothing wrong;

Striving to follow what others have done,

One to the number may keep up the fun).

Beautiful snow, so gently you scud,

Pure for a minute, then dirty as mud!

Oh! the snow, the beautiful snow!

Here's a fine mess you have left us below;

Chilling our feet to the tips of our toes;

Cheekily landing full pert on our nose;

Jinking, slinking, ever you try

'Neath our umbrella to flop in our eye;

Gamins await us at every new street,

Watching us carefully, guiding our feet,

Joking, mocking, ready to throw

A hard-compressed ball of this beautiful snow.

Anonymous.

THE NEWEST THING IN CHRISTMAS

CAROLS

GOD rest you, merry gentlemen!

May nothing you dismay;

Not even the dyspeptic plats

Through which you'll eat your way;

Nor yet the heavy Christmas bills

The season bids you pay;

No, nor the ever tiresome need

Of being to order gay;

Nor yet the shocking cold you'll catch

If fog and slush hold sway;

Nor yet the tumbles you must bear

If frost should win the day;

Nor sleepless nights—they're sure to come—

When "waits" attune their lay;

Nor pantomimes, whose dreariness

Might turn macassar gray;

Nor boisterous children, home in heaps,

And ravenous of play;

Nor yet—in fact, the host of ills

Which Christmases array.

God rest you, merry gentlemen,

May none of these dismay!

Anonymous.

THE TALE OF LORD LOVELL

LORD LOVELL he stood at his own front door,

Seeking the hole for the key;

His hat was wrecked, and his trousers bore

A rent across either knee,

When down came the beauteous Lady Jane

In fair white draperie.

"Oh, where have you been, Lord Lovell?" she said,

"Oh, where have you been?" said she;

"I have not closed an eye in bed,

And the clock has just struck three.

Who has been standing you on your head

In the ash-barrel, pardie?"

"I am not drunk, Lad' Shane," he said:

"And so late it cannot be;

The clock struck one as I enteréd—

I heard it two times or three;

It must be the salmon on which I fed

Has been too many for me."

"Go tell your tale, Lord Lovell," she said,

"To the maritime cavalree,

To your grandmother of the hoary head—

To any one but me:

The door is not used to be openéd

With a cigarette for a key."

Anonymous.

"SONGS WITHOUT WORDS"

I   CANNOT sing the old songs,

Though well I know the tune,

Familiar as a cradle-song

With sleep-compelling croon;

Yet though I'm filled with music

As choirs of summer birds,

"I cannot sing the old songs"—

I do not know the words.

I start on "Hail Columbia,"

And get to "heav'n-born band,"

And there I strike an up-grade

With neither steam nor sand;

"Star-Spangled Banner" downs me

Right in my wildest screaming,

I start all right, but dumbly come

To voiceless wreck at "streaming."

So when I sing the old songs,

Don't murmur or complain

If "Ti, diddy ah da, tum dum"

Should fill the sweetest strain.

I love "Tolly um dum di do,"

And the "Trilla-la yeep da" birds,

But "I cannot sing the old songs"—

I do not know the words.

Robert J. Burdette.

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN

BY the side of a murmuring stream, an elderly gentleman sat,

On the top of his head was his wig, and a-top of his wig was his hat.

The wind it blew high and blew strong, as the elderly gentleman sat;

And bore from his head in a trice, and plunged in the river his hat.

The gentleman then took his cane, which lay by his side as he sat;

And he dropped in the river his wig, in attempting to get out his hat.

His breast it grew cold with despair, and full in his eye madness sat;

So he flung in the river his cane to swim with his wig and his hat.

Cool reflection at last came across, while this elderly gentleman sat;

So he thought he would follow the stream, and look for his cane, wig, and hat.

His head, being thicker than common, o'erbalanced the rest of his fat,

And in plumpt this son of a woman, to follow his wig, cane, and hat.

George Canning.

TURTLE SOUP

BEAUTIFUL soup, so rich and green,

Waiting in a hot tureen!

Who for such dainties would not stoop?

Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup?

Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup?

Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!

Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!

Soo—oop of the e—e—evening,

Beautiful, beautiful Soup!

"Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish,

Game, or any other dish?

Who would not give all else for two p

Ennyworth only of beautiful Soup?

Pennyworth only of beautiful soup?

Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!

Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!

Soo—oop of the e—e—evening,

Beautiful, beauti—FUL SOUP!"

Lewis Carroll.

SOME DAY

(To an Extortionate Tailor)

I   KNOW not when your bill I'll see,

I know not when that bill fell due,

What interest you will charge to me,

Or will you take my I. O. U.?

It may not be till years are passed,

Till chubby children's locks are gray;

The tailor trusts us, but at last

His reckoning we must meet some day.

Some day—some day—some day I must meet it,

Snip, I know not when or how,

Snip, I know not when or how;

Only this—only this—this that once you did me—

Only this—I'll do you now—I'll do you now now—

I'll do you now!

I know not are you far or near—

Are you at rest, or cutting still?

I know not who is held so dear!

Or who's to pay your "little bill"!

But when it comes,—some day—some day—

These eyes an awful tote may see;

And don't you wish, my tailor gay,

That you may get your £. s. d.?

Some day—some day—some day I must meet it,

Snip, I know not when or how,

Snip, I know not when or how;

Only this—only this—this that once you did me—

Only this—I'll do you now—I'll do you now now—

I'll do you now!

F. P. Doveton.

IF I SHOULD DIE TO-NIGHT

IF I should die to-night

And you should come to my cold corpse and say,

Weeping and heartsick o'er my lifeless clay—

If I should die to-night,

And you should come in deepest grief and woe—

And say: "Here's that ten dollars that I owe,"

I might arise in my large white cravat

And say, "What's that?"

If I should die to-night

And you should come to my cold corpse and kneel,

Clasping my bier to show the grief you feel,

I say, if I should die to-night

And you should come to me, and there and then

Just even hint 'bout paying me that ten,

I might arise the while,

But I'd drop dead again.

Ben King.

A LOVE SONG

(In the modern taste, 1733)

FLUTTERING spread thy purple pinions,

Gentle Cupid, o'er my heart;

I, a slave in thy dominions;

Nature must give way to art.

Mild Arcadians, ever blooming,

Nightly nodding o'er your flocks,

See my weary days consuming

All beneath yon flowery rocks.

Thus the Cyprian goddess weeping

Mourn'd Adonis, darling youth;

Him the boar, in silence creeping,

Gored with unrelenting tooth.

Cynthia, tune harmonious numbers,

Fair Discretion, string the lyre;

Soothe my ever-waking slumbers;

Bright Apollo, lend thy choir.

Gloomy Pluto, king of terrors,

Arm'd in adamantine chains,

Lead me to the crystal mirrors

Watering soft Elysian plains.

Mourning cypress, verdant willow,

Gilding my Aurelia's brows,

Morpheus hovering o'er my pillow,

Hear me pay my dying vows.

Melancholy smooth Meander,

Swiftly purling in a round,

On thy margin lovers wander,

With thy flowery chaplets crowned.

Thus when Philomela drooping

Softly seeks her silent mate,

See the bird of Juno stooping;

Melody resigns to fate.

Dean Swift.

OLD FASHIONED FUN

WHEN that old joke was new,

It was not hard to joke,

And puns we now pooh-pooh,

Great laughter would provoke.

True wit was seldom heard,

And humor shown by few,

When reign'd King George the Third,

And that old joke was new.

It passed indeed for wit,

Did this achievement rare,

When down your friend would sit,

To steal away his chair.

You brought him to the floor,

You bruised him black and blue,

And this would cause a roar,

When your old joke was new.

W. M. Thackeray.

THEMES WITH VARIATIONS

HOME SWEET HOME WITH

VARIATIONS

(Being suggestions of the various styles in which an old theme might have been treated by certain metrical composers)

FANTASIA

I

The original theme as John Howard Payne wrote it:

MID pleasures and palaces though we may roam,

Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home!

A charm from the skies seems to hallow it there,

Which, seek through the world, is not met with elsewhere.

Home, home! Sweet, Sweet Home!

There's no place like Home!

An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain!

Oh, give me my lowly thatched cottage again!

The birds singing gaily that came at my call!

Give me them! and the peace of mind, dearer than all.

Home, home! Sweet, Sweet Home!

There's no place like Home!

II

(As Algernon Charles Swinburne might have wrapped it up in variations)

('Mid pleasures and palaces—)

As sea-foam blown of the winds, as blossom of brine that is drifted

Hither and yon on the barren breast of the breeze,

Though we wander on gusts of a god's breath, shaken and shifted,

The salt of us stings and is sore for the sobbing seas.

For home's sake hungry at heart, we sicken in pillared porches

Of bliss made sick for a life that is barren of bliss,

For the place whereon is a light out of heaven that sears not nor scorches,

Nor elsewhere than this.

(An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain—)

For here we know shall no gold thing glisten,

No bright thing burn, and no sweet thing shine;

Nor love lower never an ear to listen

To words that work in the heart like wine.

What time we are set from our land apart,

For pain of passion and hunger of heart,

Though we walk with exiles fame faints to christen,

Or sing at the Cytherean's shrine.

(Variation: An exile from home—)

Whether with him whose head

Of gods is honored,

With song made splendent in the sight of men—

Whose heart most sweetly stout,

From ravishing France cast out,

Being firstly hers, was hers most wholly then—

Or where on shining seas like wine

The dove's wings draw the drooping Erycine.

(Give me my lowly thatched cottage—)

For Joy finds Love grow bitter,

And spreads his wings to quit her,

At thought of birds that twitter

Beneath the roof-tree's straw—

Of birds that come for calling,

No fear or fright appalling,

When dews of dusk are falling,

Or daylight's draperies draw.

(Give me them, and the peace of mind—)

Give me these things then back, though the giving

Be at cost of earth's garner of gold;

There is no life without these worth living,

No treasure where these are not told.

For the heart give the hope that it knows not,

Give the balm for the burn of the breast—

For the soul and the mind that repose not,

Oh, give us a rest!

III

(As Mr. Francis Bret Harte might have woven it into a touching tale of a western gentleman in a red shirt)

Brown o' San Juan,

Stranger, I'm Brown.

Come up this mornin' from 'Frisco—

Be'n a-saltin' my specie-stacks down.

Be'n a-knockin' around,

Fer a man from San Juan,

Putty consid'able frequent—

Jes' catch onter that streak o' the dawn!

Right thar lies my home—

Right thar in the red—

I could slop over, stranger, in po'try—

Would spread out old Shakspoke cold dead.

Stranger, you freeze to this: there ain't no kinder gin-palace,

Nor no variety-show lays over a man's own rancho.

Maybe it hain't no style, but the Queen in the Tower o' London,

Ain't got naathin' I'd swop for that house over thar on the hill-side.

Thar is my ole gal, 'n' the kids, 'n' the rest o' my live-stock;

Thar my Remington hangs, and thar there's a griddle-cake br'ilin'—

For the two of us, pard—and thar, I allow, the heavens

Smile more friendly-like than on any other locality.

Stranger, nowhere else I don't take no satisfaction.

Gimme my ranch, 'n' them friendly old Shanghai chickens—

I brung the original pair f'm the States in eighteen-'n'-fifty—

Gimme me them and the feelin' of solid domestic comfort.

Yer parding, young man—

But this landscape a kind

Er flickers—I 'low 'twuz the po'try—

I thought that my eyes hed gone blind.

Take that pop from my belt!

Hi, thar!—gimme yer han'—

Or I'll kill myself—Lizzie—she's left me—

Gone off with a purtier man!

Thar, I'll quit—the ole gal

An' the kids—run away!

I be derned! Howsomever, come in, pard—

The griddle-cake's thar, anyway.

IV

(As Austin Dobson might have translated it from Horace, if it had ever occurred to Horace to write it)

RONDEAU

At home alone, O Nomades,

Although Mæcenas' marble frieze

Stand not between you and the sky,

Nor Persian luxury supply

Its rosy surfeit, find ye ease.

Tempt not the far Ægean breeze;

With home-made wine and books that please,

To duns and bores the door deny,

At home, alone.

Strange joys may lure. Your deities

Smile here alone. Oh, give me these:

Low eaves, where birds familiar fly,

And peace of mind, and, fluttering by,

My Lydia's graceful draperies,

At home, alone.

V

(As it might have been constructed in 1744, Oliver Goldsmith, at 19, writing the first stanza, and Alexander Pope, at 52, the second)

Home! at the word, what blissful visions rise,

Lift us from earth, and draw toward the skies;

'Mid mirag'd towers, or meretricious joys,

Although we roam, one thought the mind employs:

Or lowly hut, good friend, or loftiest dome,

Earth knows no spot so holy as our Home.

There, where affection warms the father's breast,

There is the spot of heav'n most surely blest.

Howe'er we search, though wandering with the wind

Through frigid Zembla, or the heats of Ind,

Not elsewhere may we seek, nor elsewhere know,

The light of heaven upon our dark below.

When from our dearest hope and haven reft,

Delight nor dazzles, nor is luxury left,

We long, obedient to our nature's law,

To see again our hovel thatched with straw:

See birds that know our avenaceous store

Stoop to our hand, and thence repleted soar:

But, of all hopes the wanderer's soul that share,

His pristine peace of mind's his final prayer.

VI

(As Walt Whitman might have written all around it)

I

You over there, young man with the guide-book, red-bound, covered flexibly with red linen,

Come here, I want to talk with you; I, Walt, the Manhattanese, citizen of these States, call you.

Yes, and the courier, too, smirking, smug-mouthed, with oil'd hair; a garlicky look about him generally; him, too, I take in, just as I would a coyote or a king, or a toad-stool, or a ham-sandwich, or anything, or anybody else in the world.

Where are you going?

You want to see Paris, to eat truffles, to have a good time; in Vienna, London, Florence, Monaco, to have a good time; you want to see Venice.

Come with me. I will give you a good time; I will give you all the Venice you want, and most of the Paris.

I, Walt, I call to you. I am all on deck! Come and loafe with me! Let me tote you around by your elbow and show you things.

You listen to my ophicleide!

Home!

Home, I celebrate. I elevate my fog-whistle, inspir'd by the thought of home.

Come in!—take a front seat; the jostle of the crowd not minding; there is room enough for all of you.

This is my exhibition—it is the greatest show on earth—there is no charge for admission.

All you have to pay me is to take in my romanza.

II

1. The brown-stone house; the father coming home worried from a bad day's business; the wife meets him in the marble pav'd vestibule; she throws her arms about him; she presses him close to her; she looks him full in the face with affectionate eyes; the frown from his brow disappearing.

Darling, she says, Johnny has fallen down and cut his head; the cook is going away, and the boiler leaks.

2. The mechanic's dark little third-story room, seen in a flash from the Elevated Railway train; the sewing-machine in a corner; the small cook-stove; the whole family eating cabbage around a kerosene lamp; of the clatter and roar and groaning wail of the Elevated train unconscious; of the smell of the cabbage unconscious.

Me, passant, in the train, of the cabbage not quite so unconscious.

3. The French Flat; the small rooms, all right-angles, unindividual; the narrow halls; the gaudy, cheap decorations everywhere.

The janitor and the cook exchanging compliments up and down the elevator-shaft; the refusal to send up more coal, the solid splash of the water upon his head, the language he sends up the shaft, the triumphant laughter of the cook, to her kitchen retiring.

4. The widow's small house in the suburbs of the city; the widow's boy coming home from his first day down town; he is flushed with happiness and pride; he is no longer a school-boy, he is earning money; he takes on the airs of a man and talks learnedly of business.

5. The room in the third-class boarding-house; the mean little hard-coal fire, the slovenly Irish servant-girl making it, the ashes on the hearth, the faded furniture, the private provender hid away in the closet, the dreary backyard out the window; the young girl at the glass, with her mouth full of hairpins, doing up her hair to go downstairs and flirt with the young fellows in the parlor.

6. The kitchen of the old farm-house; the young convict just returned from prison—it was his first offense, and the judges were lenient on him.

He is taking his first meal out of prison; he has been received back, kiss'd, encourag'd to start again; his lungs, his nostrils expand with the big breaths of free air; with shame, with wonderment, with a trembling joy, his heart too, expanding.

The old mother busies herself about the table; she has ready for him the dishes he us'd to like; the father sits with his back to them, reading the newspaper, the newspaper shaking and rustling much; the children hang wondering around the prodigal—they have been caution'd: Do not ask where our Jim has been; only say you are glad to see him.

The elder daughter is there, palefac'd, quiet; her young man went back on her four years ago; his folks would not let him marry a convict's sister. She sits by the window, sewing on the children's clothes, the clothes not only patching up; her hunger for children of her own invisibly patching up.

The brother looks up; he catches her eye, he fearful, apologetic; she smiles back at him, not reproachfully smiling, with loving pretence of hope smiling—it is too much for him; he buries his face in the folds of the mother's black gown.

7. The best room of the house, on the Sabbath only open'd; the smell of horse-hair furniture and mahogany varnish; the ornaments on the what-not in the corner; the wax fruit, dusty, sunken, sagged in, consumptive-looking, under a glass globe, the sealing-wax imitation of coral; the cigar boxes with shells plastered over, the perforated card-board motto.

The kitchen; the housewife sprinkling the clothes for the fine ironing to-morrow—it is the Third-day night, and the plain things are ready iron'd, now in cupboards, in drawers stowed away.

The wife waiting for the husband—he is at the tavern, jovial, carousing; she, alone in the kitchen sprinkling clothes—the little red wood clock with peaked top, with pendulum wagging behind a pane of gayly painted glass, strikes twelve.

The sound of the husband's voice on the still night air—he is singing: "We won't go home until morning!"—the wife arising, toward the wood-shed hastily going, stealthily entering, the voice all the time coming nearer, inebriate, chantant.

The husband passing the door of the wood-shed; the club over his head, now with his head in contact; the sudden cessation of the song; the benediction of peace over the domestic foyer temporarily resting.

I sing the soothing influences of home.

You, young man, thoughtlessly wandering, with courier, with guide-book wandering,

You hearken to the melody of my steam-calliope

Yawp!

Henry Cuyler Bunner.

MODERN VERSIFICATION ON

ANCIENT THEMES

GOOSE À LA MODE

—Mary, Mary, quite contrary,

How does your garden grow?

WITHIN the garden's deepness filled of light

Stood Mary, and upon her fair green gown

Fell glory of gold hair, a stern sweet frown

Was on her forehead, slim cold hands and white

Made ending of her long pale arms' delight.

And questioning, I—"How does your garden grow?"

Then she—"With bells that ring, and shells that sing

Of strange gray seas, with fair, strong hands that cling

Together, stand tall damozels a-row."

Elizabeth Cavazza.

THREE CHILDREN SLIDING

—Three children sliding on the ice

All on a summer's day.

FOUR are the names of the seasons—spring, summer, autumn, and winter.

Summer is hot and winter is cold, while the others partake in

Greater or less degree of cold and caloric commingled.

Surely, I think, it is well to be good, and my mind is astonished

At the exceeding sin of sinfulness, whereof the perils

Shown in my verse are apparent. Three rosy children were sliding

Over the ice in summer and—fate so decreeing, it happened—

Fell through the ice and were drowned. Had these children in winter been sliding

On the bare earth, or had they, by the peaceful fireside sitting,

Studied their catechism, it were strange—so the novel thought strikes me—

Even in summer's heat had the ice broken suddenly under

Avoirdupois of these babes, and diluted the well-springs of pleasure.

JACK AND JILL

—Jack and Jill went up a hill

To draw a pail of water.

WHAT moan is made of the mountain, what sob of the hillside,

Why a lament of the south wind, and rainfall as tears?

Brother and sister, once bodies and spirits together,

Fell as fair ghosts down the sad swift slope of the years.

Where is the fount on the mount where the thrill of water

Sang as a siren its song to the steep beneath?

Where are the feet of the son and the fair-eyed daughter,

Feet drawn aside of Fate, and set in the pathway of Death!

Ah cruel earth and hard, ah, pitiless laughter

Made of the waters, when, shattered his golden crown,

Fell the fair boy as a star, and his sister after,

To the field of the dead, to its cold and the darkness unknown!

Elizabeth Cavazza.

JACK AND JILL

(As Austin Dobson might have written it)

THEIR pail they must fill

In a crystalline springlet,

Brave Jack and fair Jill.

Their pail they must fill

At the top of the hill,

Then she gives him a ringlet.

Their pail they must fill

In a crystalline springlet.

They stumbled and fell,

And poor Jack broke his forehead,

Oh, how he did yell!

They stumbled and fell,

And went down pell-mell—

By Jove! it was horrid.

They stumbled and fell,

And poor Jack broke his forehead.

(As Swinburne might have written it)

The shudd'ring sheet of rain athwart the trees!

The crashing kiss of lightning on the seas!

The moaning of the night wind on the wold,

That erstwhile was a gentle, murm'ring breeze!

On such a night as this went Jill and Jack

With strong and sturdy strides through dampness black

To find the hill's high top and water cold,

Then toiling through the town to bear it back.

The water drawn, they rest awhile. Sweet sips

Of nectar then for Jack from Jill's red lips,

And then with arms entwined they homeward go;

Till mid the mad mud's moistened mush Jack slips.

Sweet Heaven, draw a veil on this sad plight,

His crazéd cries and cranium cracked; the fright

Of gentle Jill, her wretchedness and wo!

Kind Phœbus, drive thy steeds and end this night!

(As Walt Whitman might have written it)

I celebrate the personality of Jack!

I love his dirty hands, his tangled hair, his locomotion blundering.

Each wart upon his hands I sing,

Pæans I chant to his hulking shoulder blades.

Also Jill!

Her I celebrate.

I, Walt, of unbridled thought and tongue,

Whoop her up!

What's the matter with Jill?

Oh, she's all right!

Who's all right?

Jill.

Her golden hair, her sun-struck face, her hard and reddened hands;

So, too, her feet, hefty, shambling.

I see them in the evening, when the sun empurples the horizon, and through the darkening forest aisles are heard the sounds of myriad creatures of the night.

I see them climb the steep ascent in quest of water for their mother.

Oh, speaking of her, I could celebrate the old lady if I had time.

She is simply immense!

But Jack and Jill are walking up the hill.

(I didn't mean that rhyme.)

I must watch them.

I love to watch their walk,

And wonder as I watch;

He, stoop-shouldered, clumsy, hide-bound,

Yet lusty,

Bearing his share of the 1-lb bucket as though it were a paperweight.

She, erect, standing, her head uplifting,

Holding, but bearing not the bucket.

They have reached the spring.

They have filled the bucket.

Have you heard the "Old Oaken Bucket"?

I will sing it:—

Of what countless patches is the bed-quilt of life composed!

Here is a piece of lace. A babe is born.

The father is happy, the mother is happy.

Next black crêpe. A beldame "shuffles off this mortal coil."

Now brocaded satin with orange blossoms,

Mendelssohn's "Wedding March," an old shoe missile,

A broken carriage window, the bride in the Bellevue sleeping.

Here's a large piece of black cloth!

"Have you any last words to say?"

"No."

"Sheriff, do your work!"

Thus it is: from "grave to gay, from lively to severe."

I mourn the downfall of my Jack and Jill.

I see them descending, obstacles not heeding.

I see them pitching headlong, the water from the pail outpouring, a noise from leathern lungs out-belching.

The shadows of the night descend on Jack, recumbent, bellowing, his pate with gore besmeared.

I love his cowardice, because it is an attribute, just like

Job's patience or Solomon's wisdom, and I love attributes.

Whoop!!!

Charles Battell Loomis.

THE REJECTED "NATIONAL HYMNS"

I

BY H—Y W. L—NGF—W

BACK in the years when Phlagstaff, the Dane, was monarch

Over the sea-ribb'd land of the fleet-footed Norsemen,

Once there went forth young Ursa to gaze at the heavens—

Ursa—the noblest of all the kings and horsemen.

Musing, he sat in his stirrups and viewed the horizon,

Where the Aurora lapt stars in a North-polar manner,

Wildly he stared,—for there in the heavens before him

Fluttered and flam'd the original Star Spangled Banner.

II

BY J—HN GR——NL——F WH——T——R

My Native Land, thy Puritanic stock

Still finds its roots firm-bound in Plymouth Rock,

And all thy sons unite in one grand wish—

To keep the virtues of Preservéd Fish.

Preservéd Fish, the Deacon stern and true

Told our New England what her sons should do,

And if they swerve from loyalty and right,

Then the whole land is lost indeed in night.

III

BY DR. OL—V—R W—ND——L H—LMES

A diagnosis of our history proves

Our native land a land its native loves;

Its birth a deed obstetric without peer,

Its growth a source of wonder far and near.

To love it more, behold how foreign shores

Sink into nothingness beside its stores;

Hyde Park at best—though counted ultra-grand—

The "Boston Common" of Victoria's land.

IV

BY RALPH W—LDO EM—R——N

Source immaterial of material naught,

Focus of light infinitesimal,

Sum of all things by sleepless Nature wrought,

Of which the normal man is decimal.

Refract, in Prism immortal, from thy stars

To the stars bent incipient on our flag,

The beam translucent, neutrifying death,

And raise to immortality the rag.

V

BY W—LL——M C—LL—N B—Y—NT

The sun sinks softly to his Ev'ning Post,

The sun swells grandly to his morning crown;

Yet not a star our Flag of Heav'n has lost,

And not a sunset stripe with him goes down.

So thrones may fall, and from the dust of those,

New thrones may rise, to totter like the last;

But still our Country's nobler planet glows

While the eternal stars of Heaven are fast.

VI

BY N. P. W-LLIS

One hue of our Flag is taken

From the cheeks of my blushing Pet,

And its stars beat time, and sparkle

Like the studs on her chemisette.

Its blue is the ocean shadow

That hides in her dreamy eyes,

It conquers all men, like her,

And still for a Union flies.

VII

BY TH-M-S B-IL-Y ALD—CH

The little brown squirrel hops in the corn,

The cricket quaintly sings,

The emerald pigeon nods his head,

And the shad in the river springs,

The dainty sunflower hangs its head

On the shore of the summer sea;

And better far that I were dead,

If Maud did not love me.

I love the squirrel that hops in the corn,

And the cricket that quaintly sings;

And the emerald pigeon that nods his head,

And the shad that gaily springs.

I love the dainty sunflower too,

And Maud with her snowy breast;

I love them all; but I love—I love—

I love my country best.

Robert Henry Newell.

("Orpheus C. Kerr.")

A THEME WITH VARIATIONS

THEME

RIDE a cock-horse to Banbury Cross,

To see a fine lady ride on a white horse;

With rings on her fingers, and bells on her toes,

She shall have music wherever she goes.

(Variation I.—Edmund Spenser)

So on he pricked, and loe, he gan espy,

A market and a crosse of glist'ning stone,

And eke a merrie rablement thereby,

That with the musik of the strong trombone,

And shaumes, and trompets made most dyvillish mone.

And in their midst he saw a lady sweet,

That rode upon a milk white steed alone,

In scarlet robe ycladd and wimple meet,

Bedight with rings of gold, and bells about her feet.

Whereat the knight empassioned was so deepe,

His heart was perst with very agony.

Certes (said he) I will not eat, ne sleepe,

Till I have seen the royall maid more ny;

Then will I holde her in fast fealtie,

Whom then a carle adviséd, louting low,

That little neede there was for him to die,

Sithens in yon pavilion was the show,

Where she did ride, and he for two-and-six mote go.

(Variation II.—Dr. Jonathan Swift)

Our Chloe, fresh from London town,

To country B——y comes down.

Furnished with half-a-thousand graces

Of silks, brocades, and hoops, and laces;

And tired of winning coxcombs' hearts,

On simple bumpkins tries her arts.

Behold her ambling down the street

On her white palfrey, sleek and neat.

(Though rumor talks of gaming-tables,

And says 'twas won from C——'s stables.

And that, when duns demand their bill,

She satisfies them at quadrille.)

Her fingers are encased with rings,

Although she vows she hates the things.

("Oh, la! Why ever did you buy it?

Well—it's a pretty gem—I'll try it.")

The fine French fashions all combine

To make folk stare, and Chloe shine,

From ribbon'd hat with monstrous feather,

To bells upon her under-leather.

Now Chloe, why, do you suppose,

You wear those bells about your toes?

Is it, your feet with bells you deck

For want of bows about your neck?

(Variation III—Sir Walter Scott

From "The Lady of the Cake")

"Who is this maid in wild array,

And riding in that curious way?

What mean the bells that jingle free

About her as in revelry?"

"'Tis Madge of Banbury," Roderick said.

"And she's a trifle off her head,

'Twas on her bridal morn, I ween,

When she to Graeme had wedded been,

The man who undertook to bake

Never sent home the wedding cake!

Since then she wears those bells and rings,

Since then she rides—but, hush, she sings."

She sung! The voice in other days

It had been difficult to praise,

And now it every sweetness lacked,

And voice and singer both were cracked.

SONG

They bid me ride the other way,

They say my brain is warp'd and wrung,

But, oh! the bridal bells are gay

That I about my feet have strung!

And when I face the horse's tail

I see once more in Banbury's vale

My Graeme's white plume before me wave,

So thus I'll ride until the grave.

They say that this is not my home,

'Mid Scotland's moors and Scotland's brakes.

But, oh! 'tis love that makes me roam

Forever in the land of cakes!

And woe betide the baker's guile,

Whose blight destroyed the maiden's smile!

O woe the day, and woe the deed,

And woa—gee woa—my bonnie steed!

Barry Pain.

THE POETS AT TEA

1.—(Macaulay, who made it)

POUR, varlet, pour the water,

The water steaming hot!

A spoonful for each man of us,

Another for the pot!

We shall not drink from amber,

Nor Capuan slave shall mix

For us the snows of Athos

With port at thirty-six;

Whiter than snow the crystals,

Grown sweet 'neath tropic fires,

More rich the herbs of China's field,

The pasture-lands more fragrance yield;

For ever let Britannia wield

The tea-pot of her sires!

2.—(Tennyson, who took it hot)

I think that I am drawing to an end:

For on a sudden came a gasp for breath,

And stretching of the hands, and blinded eyes,

And a great darkness falling on my soul.

O Hallelujah! . . . Kindly pass the milk.

3.—(Swinburne, who let it get cold)

As the sin that was sweet in the sinning

Is foul in the ending thereof,

As the heat of the summer's beginning

Is past in the winter of love:

O purity, painful and pleading!

O coldness, ineffably gray!

Oh, hear us, our handmaid unheeding,

And take it away!

4.—(Cowper, who thoroughly enjoyed it)

The cosy fire is bright and gay,

The merry kettle boils away

And hums a cheerful song.

I sing the saucer and the cup;

Pray, Mary, fill the tea-pot up,

And do not make it strong.

5.—(Browning, who treated it allegorically)

Tut! Bah! We take as another case—

Pass the bills on the pills on the window-sill; notice the capsule

(A sick man's fancy, no doubt, but I place

Reliance on trade-marks, Sir)—so perhaps you'll

Excuse the digression—this cup which I hold

Light-poised—Bah, it's spilt in the bed!—well, let's on go—

Hold Bohea and sugar, Sir; if you were told

The sugar was salt, would the Bohea be Congo?

6.—(Wordsworth, who gave it away)

"Come, little cottage girl, you seem

To want my cup of tea;

And will you take a little cream?

Now tell the truth to me."

She had a rustic, woodland grin,

Her cheek was soft as silk,

And she replied, "Sir, please put in

A little drop of milk."

"Why, what put milk into your head?

'Tis cream my cows supply;"

And five times to the child I said,

"Why, pig-head, tell me, why?"

"You call me pig-head," she replied;

"My proper name is Ruth.

I called that milk"—she blushed with pride—

"You bade me speak the truth."

7.—(Poe, who got excited over it)

Here's a mellow cup of tea, golden tea!

What a world of rapturous thought its fragrance brings to me!

Oh, from out the silver cells

How it wells!

How it smells!

Keeping tune, tune, tune

To the tintinnabulation of the spoon.

And the kettle on the fire

Boils its spout off with desire,

With a desperate desire

And a crystalline endeavour

Now, now to sit, or never,

On the top of the pale-faced moon,

But he always came home to tea, tea, tea, tea, tea,

Tea to the n—th.

8.—(Rossetti, who took six cups of it)

The lilies lie in my lady's bower

(O weary mother, drive the cows to roost),

They faintly droop for a little hour;

My lady's head droops like a flower.

She took the porcelain in her hand

(O weary mother, drive the cows to roost);

She poured; I drank at her command;

Drank deep, and now—you understand!

(O weary mother, drive the cows to roost.)

9.—(Burns, who liked it adulterated)

Weel, gin ye speir, I'm no inclined,

Whusky or tay—to state my mind,

Fore ane or ither;

For, gin I tak the first, I'm fou,

And gin the next, I'm dull as you,

Mix a' thegither.

10.—(Walt Whitman, who didn't stay more than a minute)

One cup for my self-hood,

Many for you. Allons, camerados, we will drink together,

O hand-in-hand! That tea-spoon, please, when you've done with it.

What butter-colour'd hair you've got. I don't want to be personal.

All right, then, you needn't. You're a stale-cadaver.

Eighteen-pence if the bottles are returned.

Allons, from all bat-eyed formula.

Barry Pain.

THE POETS AT A HOUSE-PARTY

(A modern mortal having inadvertently stumbled in upon a house-party of poets given on Mount Olympus, being called upon to justify his presence there by writing a poem, offered a Limerick. Whereupon each poet scoffed, and the mortal, offended, challenged them to do better with the same theme)

The Limerick

A   SCHOLARLY person named Finck

Went mad in the effort to think

Which were graver misplaced,

To dip pen in his paste,

Or dip his paste-brush in the ink.

(Omar Khayyam's version)

Stay, fellow-traveler, let us stop and think,

Pause and reflect on the abysmal brink;

Say, would you rather thrust your pen in paste,

Or dip your paste-brush carelessly in ink?

(Rudyard Kipling's version)

Here is a theme that is worthy of our cognizance,

A theme of great importance and a question for your ken;

Would you rather—stop and think well—

Dip your paste-brush in your ink-well,

Or in your pesky pasting-pot immerse your ink pen?

(Walt Whitman's version)

Hail, Camerados!

I salute you,

Also I salute the sewing-machine, and the flour-barrel, and the feather-duster.

What is an aborigine, anyhow?

I see a paste-pot.

Ay, and a well of ink.

Well, well!

Which shall I do?

Ah, the immortal fog.

What am I myself

But a meteor

In the fog?

(Chaucer's version)

A mayde ther ben, a wordy one and wyse,

Who wore a paire of gogles on her eyes.

O'er theemes of depest thogt her braine she werked,

Nor ever any knoty problemme sherked.

Yette when they askt her if she'd rather sinke

Her penne in payste, or eke her brushe in inke,

"Ah," quo' the canny mayde, "now wit ye wel,

I'm wyse enow to know—too wyse to tel."

(Henry James' version)

She luminously wavered, and I tentatively inferred that she would soon perfectly reconsider her not altogether unobvious course. Furiously, though with a tender, ebbing similitude, across her mental consciousness stole a re-culmination of all the truths she had ever known concerning, or even remotely relating to, the not-easily fathomed qualities of paste and ink. So she stood, focused in an intensity of soul-quivers, and I, all unrelenting, waited, though of a dim uncertainty whether, after all, it might not be only a dubitant problem.

(Swinburne's version)

Shall I dip, shall I dip it, Dolores,

This luminous paste-brush of thine?

Shall I sully its white-breasted glories,

Its fair, foam-flecked figure divine?

Or shall I—abstracted, unheeding—

Swish swirling this pen in my haste,

And, deaf to thy pitiful pleading,

Just jab it in paste?

(Eugene Field's version)

See the Ink Bottle on the Desk! It is full of Nice Black Ink. Why, the Paste-Pot is there, Too! Let us watch Papa as he sits down to write. Oh, he is going to paste a Second-hand Stamp on a Letter. See, he has dipped his Brush in the Ink by Mistake. Oh, what a Funny Mistake! Now, although it is Winter, we may have to Endure the Heated Term.

(Stephen Crane's version)

I stood upon a church spire,

A slender, pointed spire,

And I saw

Ranged in solemn row before me,

A paste-pot and an ink-pot.

I held in my either hand

A pen and a brush.

Ay, a pen and a brush.

Now this is the strange part;

I stood upon a church spire,

A slender, pointed spire,

Glad, exultant,

Because

The choice was mine!

Ay, mine!

As I stood upon a church spire,

A slender, pointed spire.

(Mr. Dooley's version)

"I see by th' pa-apers, Hennessy," said Mr. Dooley, "that they'se a question up for dee-bate."

"What's a dee-bate?" asked Mr. Hennessy.

"Well, it's different from a fish-bait," returned Mr. Dooley, "an' it's like this, if I can bate it into the thick head of ye. A lot of people argyfies an' argyfies to decide, as in the prisint instance, whether a man'd rayther shtick his pastin'-brush in his ink-shtand, or if he'd like it betther to be afther dippin' his pen in his pashte-pot."

"Thot," said Mr. Hennessy, "is a foolish question, an' only fools wud argyfy about such a thing as thot."

"That's what makes it a dee-bate," said Mr. Dooley.

Carolyn Wells.

AN OLD SONG BY NEW SINGERS

(In the original)

MARY had a little lamb,

Its fleece was white as snow,—

And everywhere that Mary went

The lamb was sure to go.

(As Austin Dobson writes it)

TRIOLET

A little lamb had Mary, sweet,

With a fleece that shamed the driven snow.

Not alone Mary went when she moved her feet

(For a little lamb had Mary, sweet),

And it tagged her 'round with a pensive bleat,

And wherever she went it wanted to go;

A little lamb had Mary, sweet,

With a fleece that shamed the driven snow.

(As Mr. Browning has it)

You knew her?—Mary the small,

How of a summer,—or, no, was it fall?

You'd never have thought it, never believed,

But the girl owned a lamb last fall.

Its wool was subtly, silky white,

Color of lucent obliteration of night,

Like the shimmering snow or—our Clothild's arm!

You've seen her arm—her right, I mean—

The other she scalded a-washing, I ween—

How white it is and soft and warm?

Ah, there was soul's heart-love, deep, true, and tender,

Wherever went Mary, the maiden so slender,

There followed, his all-absorbed passion, inciting,

That passionate lambkin—her soul's heart delighting—

Ay, every place that Mary sought in,

That lamb was sure to soon be caught in.

(As Longfellow might have done it)

Fair the daughter known as Mary,

Fair and full of fun and laughter,

Owned a lamb, a little he-goat,

Owned him all herself and solely.

White the lamb's wool as the Gotchi—

The great Gotchi, driving snowstorm.

Hither Mary went and thither,

But went with her to all places,

Sure as brook to run to river,

Her pet lambkin following with her.

(How Andrew Lang sings it)

RONDEAU

A wonderful lass was Marie, petite,

And she looked full fair and passing sweet—

And, oh! she owned—but cannot you guess

What pet can a maiden so love and caress

As a tiny lamb with a plaintive bleat,

And mud upon his dainty feet,

And a gentle veally odour of meat,

And a fleece to finger and kiss and press—

White as snow?

Wherever she wandered, in lane or street,

As she sauntered on, there at her feet

She would find that lambkin—bless

The dear!—treading on her dainty dress,

Her dainty dress, fresh and neat—

White as snow!

(Mr. Algernon C. Swinburne's idea)

VILLANELLE

Dewy-eyed with shimmering hair,

Maiden and lamb were a sight to see,

For her pet was white as she was fair.

And its lovely fleece was beyond compare,

And dearly it loved its Mistress Marie,

Dewy-eyed, with shimmering hair.

Its warpéd wool was an inwove snare,

To tangle her fingers in, where they could be

(For her pet was white as she was fair).

Lost from sight, both so snow-white were,

And the lambkin adored the maiden wee,

Dewy-eyed with shimmering hair.

Th' impassioned incarnation of rare,

Of limpid-eyed, luscious-lipped, loved beauty,

And her pet was white as she was fair.

Wherever she wandered, hither and there,

Wildly that lambkin sought with her to be,

With the dewy-eyed, with shimmering hair,

And a pet as white as its mistress was fair.

A. C. Wilkie.

INDEX OF TITLES

AESTHERE TO THE ROSE, THE

Punch

40

After Browning

194

Amateur Flute, The

140

American, One of the Roughs, A Kosmos, An

219

Ancient Mariner, The

61

Angelo Orders His Dinner

Bayard Taylor

205

Annabel Lee

Stanley Huntley

147

Answer to Master Wither's Song, "Shall I,

Wasting in Despair?"

Ben Jonson

25

Atalanta in Camden-Town

Lewis Carroll

270

At the Sign of the Cock

Owen Seaman

248

BABY'S OMAR, THE

Carolyn Wells

12

Bachelor's Soliloquy, The

17

Ballad

Charles S. Calverley

253

Ballad, A

Guy Wetmore Carryl

307

Ballade of Ballade-Mongers, A

Augustus M. Moore

322

Bat, The

Lewis Carroll

82

Bather's Dirge, The

Tennyson Minor

155

Beautiful Snow

324

Bed During Exams

Clara Warren Vail

298

Behold the Deeds!

H. C. Bunner

319

Bells, The

Judy

148

Birds and the Pheasant, The

Punch

131

Biter Bit, The

William Aytoun

161

Bo-Peep

Anthony C. Deane

294

Boston Nursery Rhymes

Rev. Joseph Cook

32

Burial of the Bachelor, The

88

By the Sea

Bayard Taylor

203

CAMERADOS

Bayard Taylor

220

Cannibal Flea, The

Tom Hood, Jr.

145

Cantelope, The

Bayard Taylor

243

Christmas Wail, A

252

Cimabuella

Bayard Taylor

255

Cock and the Bull, The

Charles S. Calverley

195

Cockney Enigma on the Letter H

Horace Mayhew

49

Commonplaces

Rudyard Kipling

97

Crocodile, The

Lewis Carroll

43

Cult of the Celtic, The

Anthony C. Deane

317

Culture in the Slums

W. E. Henley

322

DESOLATION

Tom Masson

130

De Tea Fabula

A. T. Quiller-Couch

289

Disaster

Charles S. Calverley

79

Domicile of John, The

A. Pope

34

Dreary Song, A

Shirley Brooks

20

ELDERLY GENTLEMAN, THE

George Canning

328

Estunt the Griff

Rudyard Kipling

235

Excelsior

124

FATHER WILLIAM

Lewis Carroll

67

Flight of the Bucket, The

Rudyard Kipling

206

Foam and Fangs

Walter Parke

278

Fragment in Imitation of Wordsworth

C. M. Fanshawe

52

Fuzzy Wuzzy Leaves us

E. P. C.

305

GAELIC SPEECH; or "Auld Lang Syne"

Done Up in Tartan

45

Gillian

268

Goblin Goose, The

Punch

150

Godiva

Oliver Herford

177

Golfer's Rubaiyat, The

H. W. Boynton

3

Grievance, A

J. K. Stephen

85

Gwendoline

Bayard Taylor

118

HADRAMAUT

Bayard Taylor

233

Heathen Pass-ee, The

A. C. Hilton

286

Higher

120

Higher Pantheism in a Nutshell, The

Algernon C. Swinburne

180

Hiram Hover

Bayard Taylor

133

Horse and His Master, The

Philip F. Allen

136

Home Sweet Home with Variations

Henry C. Bunner

334

Home Truths from Abroad

193

House that Jack Built, The

Samuel T. Coleridge

31

How Often

Ben King

129

IDYLL OF PHATTE AND LEENE, AN

29

If!

Mortimer Collins

274

If I Should Die To-Night

Ben King

331

Imitation

Henry C. Bunner

96

Imitation of Robert Browning

J. K. Stephen

210

Imitation of Walt Whitman

Judy

221

Imitation of Walt Whitman

J. K. Stephen

224

Imitation

Anthony C. Deane

296

In Immemoriam

Cuthbert Bede

174

In the Gloaming

Charles S. Calverley

116

I Remember, I Remember

Phœbe Cary

101

JACK AND JILL

Anthony C. Deane

309

Jack and Jill

Charles Battell Loomis

348

Jacob

Phœbe Cary

51

Jam-Pot, The

Rudyard Kipling

210

Jane Smith

Rudyard Kipling

54

John Thompson's Daughter

Phœbe Cary

73

LADY JANE

A. T. Quiller-Couch

69

Last Cigar, The

76

Last Ride Together, The

J. K. Stephen

212

Laureate, The

William Aytoun

163

Laureate's Log, A

Punch

178

Laureate's Tourney, The

William Aytoun

105

Lay of Macaroni, The

Bayard Taylor

284

Lay of the Lovelorn, The

William Aytoun

165

Legend of Realism, The

Hilda Johnson

313

Lines Written ("By Request") for a Dinner

of the Omar Khayyam Club

Owen Seaman

10

Little Jack Horner

Anthony C. Deane

315

Little Miss Muffet

156

Lobster Quadrille, The

Lewis Carroll

114

Lost Ape, The

J. W. G. W.

245

Lost Voice, The

A. H. S.

244

Lost Word, The

C. H. Webb

246

Love and Science

153

Lovers, and a Reflection

Charles S. Calverley

259

Love Song, A

Dean Swift

331

Lucy Lake

Newton Mackintosh

57

MAID OF THE MEERSCHAUM, THE

Rudyard Kipling

275

Manlet, The

Lewis Carroll

272

Man's Place in Nature

191

Marriage of Sir John Smith, The

Phœbe Cary

91

Mary and the Lamb

Frank D. Sherman

37

Maudle-in Ballad, A

Punch

300

Melton Mowbray Pork-Pie, A

Richard Le Gallienne

278

Modern Hiawatha, The

120

Modern Rubaiyat, The

Kate Masterson

7

Modern Versification on Ancient Themes

Elizabeth Cavazza

346

More Impressions

Oscuro Wildgoose

299

Musical Pitch, The

158

Mutton

113

My Foe

46

NEPHELIDIA

A. C. Swinburne

282

Nettle, The

Bayard Taylor

231

New Arrival, The

George W. Cable

72

Newest Thing in Christmas Carols, The

325

New Version, The

W. J. Lampton

138

Not a Sou had he Got

R. Harris Barham

89

Nursery Rhymes à la Mode

299

Nursery Song in Pidgin English

30

ODE, AN

Anthony C. Deane

237

Ode on a Jar of Pickles

Bayard Taylor

94

Ode to a London Fog

239

Of Friendship

Charles S. Calverley

185

Of Reading

Charles S. Calverley

186

Old Fashioned Fun

W. M. Thackeray

333

Old Man's Cold and How He Got It, The

66

Old Song by New Singers, An

A. C. Wilkie

368

Omar for Ladies, An

Josephine D. Bacon

5

Only Seven

Henry S. Leigh

55

On Wordsworth

51

Oyster-Crabs

Carolyn Wells

41

POET AND THE WOODLOUSE, THE

A. C. Swinburne

224

Poets at a House-Party

Carolyn Wells

363

Poets at Tea, The

Barry Pain

359

Poker

18

Portrait, A

John Keats

15

Poster Girl, The

Carolyn Wells

257

President Garfield

240

Prodigals, The

292

Promissory Note, The

Bayard Taylor

143

Propinquity Needed

Charles B. Loomis

241

Psalm of Life, A

Phœbe Cary

127

QUAERITUR

Rudyard Kipling

277

Quite the Cheese

H. C. Waring

302

RECOGNITION, THE

William Sawyer

180

Rejected "National Hymns," The

Robert H. Newell

352

Remember

Judy

263

Rigid Body Sings

J. C. Maxwell

48

Rout of Belgravia, The

Jon Duan, 84

SAMUEL BROWN

Phœbe Cary

142

Sarah's Halls

Judy

80

Self-Evident

J. R. Planché

104

Shrimp-Gatherers, The

Bayard Taylor

261

Sir Eggnogg

Bayard Taylor

175

Some Day

F. P. Doveton

329

Song

Oliver Herford

27

Song

James Whitcomb Riley

22

Song of a Heart, A

Oliver Herford

33

Song of Renunciation, A

Owen Seaman

279

Song of the Sheet

98

"Songs Without Words"

Robert J. Burdette

327

Staccato to O Le Lupe, A

Bliss Carman

200

Striking

Charles S. Calverley

64

TALE OF LORD LOVELL, THE

326

Tea, The

Tom Hood, Jr.

82

"The Day is Done"

Phœbe Cary

126

Theme with Variations, A

Barry Pain

356

"There's a Bower of Bean-Vines"

Phœbe Cary

78

Three Blessings

41

Three Little Fishers

Frank H. Stauffer

229

Three Mice, The

Anthony C. Deane

304

Three Poets, The

Lilian Whiting

230

Thyroid Gland, The

R. M.

93

Timbuctoo.—Part I.

W. M. Thackeray

183

To an Importunate Host

158

To Julia Under Lock and Key

Owen Seaman

27

Toothache

19

Topside Galah!

122

To the Stall-Holders at a Fancy Fair

W. S. Gilbert

21

Turtle Soup

Lewis Carroll

329

'T was Ever Thus

Henry S. Leigh

81

'T was Ever Thus

77

UP THE SPOUT

A. C. Swinburne

215

VILLAGE CHOIR, THE

159

Voice of the Lobster, The

Lewis Carroll

42

Vulture and the Husbandman, The

A. C Hilton

265

WAGGAWOCKY

Shirley Brooks

264

What Troubled Poe's Raven

John Bennett

139

When Lovely Woman

Phœbe Cary

44

Whist-Player's Soliloquy, The

Carolyn Wells

23

Willow-Tree, The

W. M. Thackeray

188

YE CLERKE OF YE WETHERE

14

Young Lochinvar

58

Yule-Tide Parody, A

103

INDEX OF AUTHORS

ALLEN, PHILIP F.

The Horse and His Master

136

AYTOUN, WILLIAM

The Laureate's Tourney

105

The Biter Bit

161

The Laureate

163

The Lay of the Lovelorn

165

BACON, JOSEPHINE DASKAM

An Omar for Ladies

5

BARHAM, R. HARRIS

Not a Sou Had He Got

89

BEDE, CUTHBERT

In Immemoriam

174

BENNETT, JOHN

What Troubled Poe's Raven

139

BOYNTON, H. W.

The Golfer's Rubaiyat

3

BROOKS, SHIRLEY

A Dreary Song

20

Waggawocky

264

BUNNER, HENRY CUYLER

Imitation

96

Behold the Deeds!

319

Home Sweet Home with Variations

334

BURDETTE, ROBERT J.

"Songs Without Words"

327

CABLE, GEORGE WASHINGTON

The New Arrival

72

CALVERLEY, CHARLES S.

Striking

64

Disaster

79

In the Gloaming

116

Of Friendship

185

Of Reading

186

The Cock and the Bull

195

Ballad

253

Lovers, and a Reflection

259

CANNING, GEORGE

The Elderly Gentleman

328

CARMAN, BLISS

A Staccato to O Le Lupe

200

CARROLL, LEWIS

The Voice of the Lobster

42

The Crocodile

43

Father William

67

The Bat

82

The Lobster Quadrille

114

Atalanta in Camden-Town

270

The Manlet

272

Turtle Soup

329

CARRYL, GUY WETMORE

A Ballad

307

CARY, PHŒBE

When Lovely Woman

44

Jacob

51

John Thompson's Daughter

73

"There's a Bower of Bean-Vines"

78

The Marriage of Sir John Smith

91

I Remember, I Remember

101

"The Day is Done"

126

A Psalm of Life

127

Samuel Brown

142

CAVAZZA, ELIZABETH

Modern Versification on Ancient Themes

346

COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR

The House That Jack Built

31

COLLINS, MORTIMER

If!

274

COOK, REV. JOSEPH

Boston Nursery Rhymes

32

DEANE, ANTHONY C.

An Ode

237

Bo-Peep

294

Imitation

296

The Three Mice

304

Jack and Jill

309

Little Jack Horner

315

The Cult of the Celtic

317

DOVETON, F. P.

Some Day

329

DUAN, JON

The Rout of Belgravia

84

FANSHAWE, CATHERINE M.

Fragment in Imitation of Wordsworth

52

GILBERT, W. S.

To the Stall-Holders at a Fancy Fair

21

HENLEY, W. E.

Culture in the Slums

322

HERFORD, OLIVER

Song

27

A Song of a Heart

33

Godiva

177

HILTON, A. C.

The Heathen Pass-ee

286

The Vulture and the Husbandman

265

HOOD, TOM, JR.

The Tea

82

The Cannibal Flea

145

HUNTLEY, STANLEY

Annabel Lee

147

JOHNSON, HILDA

The Legend of Realism

313

JONSON, BEN

Answer to Master Wither's Song, "Shall I, Wasting in Despair?"

25

JUDY

Sarah's Halls

80

The Bells

148

Imitation of Walt Whitman

221

Remember

263

KEATS, JOHN

A Portrait

15

KING, BEN

How Often

129

If I Should Die To-Night

331

KIPLING, RUDYARD

Jane Smith

54

Commonplaces

97

The Flight of the Bucket

206

The Jam-Pot

210

Estunt the Griff

235

The Maid of the Meerschaum

275

Quaeritur

277

LAMPTON, W. J.

The New Version

138

LE GALLIENNE, RICHARD

A Melton Mowbray Pork-Pie

278

LEIGH, HENRY S.

Only Seven

55

'Twas Ever Thus

81

LOOMIS, CHARLES BATTELL

Propinquity Needed

241

Jack and Jill

348

MACKINTOSH, NEWTON

Lucy Lake

57

MASSON, TOM

Desolation

130

MASTERSON, KATE

The Modern Rubaiyat

7

MAXWELL, J. C.

Rigid Body Sings

48

MAYHEW, HORACE

Cockney Enigma on the Letter H

49

MINOR, TENNYSON

The Bather's Dirge

155

MOORE, AUGUSTUS M.

A Ballade of Ballade-Mongers

322

NEWELL, ROBERT HENRY

The Rejected "National Hymns"

352

PAIN, BARRY

A Theme with Variations

356

The Poets at Tea

359

PARKE, WALTER

Foam and Fangs

278

PLANCHÉ, J. R.

Self-Evident

104

POPE, A.

The Domicile of John

34

PUNCH

The Aesthete to the Rose

40

The Birds and the Pheasant

131

The Goblin Goose

150

A Laureate's Log

178

A Maudle-in Ballad

300

QUILLER-COUCH, A. T.

Lady Jane

69

De Tea Fabula

289

RILEY, JAMES WHITCOMB

Song

22

SAWYER, WILLIAM

The Recognition

180

SEAMAN, OWEN

Lines Written ("By Request") for a Dinner of the Omar Khayyam Club

10

To Julia Under Lock and Key

27

At the Sign of the Cock

248

A Song of Renunciation

279

SHERMAN, FRANK DEMPSTER

Mary and the Lamb

37

STAUFFER, FRANK H.

Three Little Fishers

229

STEPHEN, J. K.

A Grievance

85

Imitation of Robert Browning

210

The Last Ride Together

212

Imitation of Walt Whitman

224

SWIFT, DEAN

A Love Song

331

SWINBURNE, ALGERNON CHARLES

The Higher Pantheism in a Nutshell

180

Up the Spout

215

The Poet and the Woodlouse

224

Nephelidia

282

TAYLOR, BAYARD

Ode on a Jar of Pickles

94

Gwendoline

118

Hiram Hover

133

The Promissory Note

143

Sir Eggnogg

175

By the Sea

203

Angelo Orders His Dinner

205

Camerados

220

The Nettle

231

Hadramaut

233

The Cantelope

243

Cimabuella

255

The Shrimp-Gatherers

261

The Lay of Macaroni

284

THACKERAY, W. M.

Timbuctoo.—Part I

183

The Willow-Tree

188

Old Fashioned Fun

333

VAIL, CLARA WARREN

Bed During Exams

298

WARING, H. C.

Quite the Cheese

302

WEBB, C. H.

The Lost Word

246

WELLS, CAROLYN

The Baby's Omar

12

The Whist-Player's Soliloquy

23

Oyster-Crabs

41

The Poster Girl

257

The Poets at a House-Party

363

WHITING, LILIAN

The Three Poets

230

WILDGOOSE, OSCURA

More Impressions

299

WILKIE, A. C.

An Old Song by New Singers

368

INDEX OF AUTHORS

PARODIED

ALDRICH, THOMAS BAILEY

355

Austin, Alfred

237

BROWNING, MRS.

116

Browning, Robert

193, 360, 368

Bryant, William Cullen

354

Bunn, Alfred

103

Burns, Robert

45, 363

Byron

84

CAMPBELL, THOMAS

72

Carroll, Lewis

264

Chaucer

14, 365

Coleridge

61

Cornwall, Barry

83

Cowper

360

Crane, Stephen

366

DICKENS, CHARLES

191

Dobson, Austin

292, 339, 348, 368

Dooley, Mr.

367

Dryden

41

EMERSON

113, 354

FANSHAWE, CATHERINE

49

Field, Eugene

366

GILBERT, W. S.

239

Goldsmith, Oliver

44, 340

HARTE, BRET

286, 337

Heine

96

Hemans, Mrs.

93

Henley, W. E.

296

Herrick

27

Holmes, Dr. Oliver Wendell

353

Hood, Thomas

98

Horace

339

Houghton, Lord

153

Howitt, Mary

114

INGELOW, JEAN

259

JAMES, HENRY

365

KEATS

94

Khayyam, Omar

3, 364

Kingsley, Charles

229

Kipling, Rudyard

305, 364

LANG, ANDREW

294, 369

Longfellow, Henry W.

120, 352, 369

MACAULAY, LORD

105, 359

MacLeod, Fiona

317

Meredith, George

248

Moore, Thomas

76

Morris, William

235

NORTON, MRS.

136

Nursery Rhymes

29

OMAR KHAYYAM

3, 364

PHILLIPS, STEPHEN

315

Poe, Edgar Allan

139, 362

Pope, Alexander

340

Popular Songs

324

Procter, A. A.

244

ROSSETTI, CHRISTINA

263

Rossetti, D. G.

252, 362

SCOTT, SIR WALTER

58, 358

Shakespeare

17

Southey, Robert

66

Spenser, Edmund

15, 356

Stevenson, R. L.

298

Stoddard, Mrs. R. H.

231

Stoddard, R. H.

243

Swift, Dr. Jonathan

357

Swinburne, Algernon C.

268, 335, 349, 360, 366, 370

TAYLOR, BAYARD

233

Taylor, Jane

82

Tennyson

155, 359

Thackeray

188

Tupper

185

VERS DE SOCIÉTÉ

319

WALLER

40

Watson, William

304

Watts, Doctor

42

Whitman

219, 341, 349, 363, 364

Whittier

133, 353

Wilde, Oscar

299

Willis, N. P.

355

Wither

25

Wolfe, Charles

88

Wordsworth

51, 361

YEATS, W. B.

317

Transcriber's Notes:

Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

Page xxviii, "peculiarites" changed to "peculiarities" (peculiarities. Among the)

Page 114, "lobters" changed to "lobsters" (with the lobsters)

Page 195, "Of" changed to "Off" (Off a bit of)

Page 223, "Oskhosh" changed to "Oshkosh" (stripes of Oshkosh, of Kalamazoo)

Page 252, "Rosetti" changed to "Rossetti" (Not by Dante Gabriel Rossetti)

Page 377, "Immemorian" changed to "Immemoriam" (In Immemoriam       Cuthbert Bede)

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Table of Contents

A Parody Anthology

NOTE

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION PARODY AS A FINE ART

A PARODY ANTHOLOGY AFTER OMAR KHAYYAM

THE GOLFER'S RUBAIYAT

AN OMAR FOR LADIES[A]

FOOTNOTE:

THE MODERN RUBAIYAT

LINES WRITTEN (“BY REQUEST") FOR A DINNER OF THE OMAR KHAYYAM CLUB

THE BABY'S OMAR

AFTER CHAUCER

YE CLERKE OF YE WETHERE

AFTER SPENSER

A PORTRAIT

AFTER SHAKESPEARE

THE BACHELOR'S SOLILOQUY

POKER

TOOTHACHE

A DREARY SONG

TO THE STALL-HOLDERS AT A FANCY FAIR

SONG

THE WHIST-PLAYER'S SOLILOQUY

AFTER WITHER

ANSWER TO MASTER WITHERS SONG, “SHALL I, WASTING IN DESPAIR?"

AFTER HERRICK

SONG

TO JULIA UNDER LOCK AND KEY

AFTER NURSERY RHYMES

AN IDYLL OF PHATTE AND LEENE

NURSERY SONG IN PIDGIN ENGLISH

THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT

BOSTON NURSERY RHYMES

RHYME FOR A GEOLOGICAL BABY

RHYME FOR ASTRONOMICAL BABY

RHYME FOR BOTANICAL BABY

RHYME FOR A CHEMICAL BABY

A SONG OF A HEART

THE DOMICILE OF JOHN

MARY AND THE LAMB

AFTER WALLER

THE AESTHETE TO THE ROSE

AFTER DRYDEN

THREE BLESSINGS

OYSTER-CRABS

AFTER DR. WATTS

THE VOICE OF THE LOBSTER

THE CROCODILE

AFTER GOLDSMITH

WHEN LOVELY WOMAN

AFTER BURNS

GAELIC SPEECH; OR, “AULD LANG SYNE" DONE UP IN TARTAN

MY FOE

RIGID BODY SINGS

AFTER CATHERINE FANSHAWE

COCKNEY ENIGMA ON THE LETTER H

AFTER WORDSWORTH

ON WORDSWORTH

JACOB

FRAGMENT IN IMITATION OF WORDSWORTH

JANE SMITH

ONLY SEVEN

LUCY LAKE

AFTER SIR WALTER SCOTT

YOUNG LOCHINVAR

AFTER COLERIDGE

THE ANCIENT MARINER

STRIKING

AFTER SOUTHEY

THE OLD MAN'S COLD AND HOW HE GOT IT

FATHER WILLIAM

LADY JANE

AFTER CAMPBELL

THE NEW ARRIVAL

JOHN THOMPSON'S DAUGHTER

AFTER THOMAS MOORE

THE LAST CIGAR

'TWAS EVER THUS

"THERE'S A BOWER OF BEAN-VINES"

DISASTER

SARAH'S HALLS

'TWAS EVER THUS

AFTER JANE TAYLOR

THE BAT

AFTER BARRY CORNWALL

THE TEA

AFTER BYRON

THE ROUT OF BELGRAVIA

A GRIEVANCE

AFTER CHARLES WOLFE

THE BURIAL OF THE BACHELOR

NOT A SOU HAD HE GOT

THE MARRIAGE OF SIR JOHN SMITH

AFTER MRS. HEMANS

THE THYROID GLAND

AFTER KEATS

I.

II.

III.

IV.

AFTER HEINE

IMITATION

COMMONPLACES

AFTER HOOD

SONG OF THE SHEET THE DRIPPING SHEET

I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER

AFTER ALFRED BUNN

A YULE-TIDE PARODY

SELF-EVIDENT

AFTER LORD MACAULAY

THE LAUREATE'S TOURNEY

FYTTE THE FIRST

FYTTE THE SECOND

AFTER EMERSON

MUTTON

AFTER MARY HOWITT

THE LOBSTER QUADRILLE

AFTER MRS. BROWNING

IN THE GLOAMING

GWENDOLINE

AFTER LONGFELLOW

THE MODERN HIAWATHA

HIGHER

TOPSIDE GALAH!

EXCELSIOR

"THE DAY IS DONE"

A PSALM OF LIFE

HOW OFTEN

DESOLATION

THE BIRDS AND THE PHEASANT

AFTER WHITTIER

HIRAM HOVER

AFTER MRS. NORTON

THE HORSE AND HIS MASTER

THE NEW VERSION

AFTER POE

WHAT TROUBLED POE'S RAVEN

THE AMATEUR FLUTE

SAMUEL BROWN

THE PROMISSORY NOTE

THE CANNIBAL FLEA

ANNABEL LEE

THE BELLS

THE GOBLIN GOOSE

AFTER LORD HOUGHTON

LOVE AND SCIENCE

AFTER TENNYSON

THE BATHER'S DIRGE

LITTLE MISS MUFFET

THE MUSICAL PITCH

TO AN IMPORTUNATE HOST

THE VILLAGE CHOIR

THE BITER BIT

THE LAUREATE

THE LAY OF THE LOVELORN

IN IMMEMORIAM

SIR EGGNOGG

GODIVA

A LAUREATE'S LOG

MONDAY

TUESDAY

WEDNESDAY

THURSDAY

FRIDAY

SATURDAY

SUNDAY

THE RECOGNITION

THE HIGHER PANTHEISM IN A NUTSHELL

TIMBUCTOO.—PART I.

AFTER TUPPER

OF FRIENDSHIP

OF READING

AFTER THACKERAY

THE WILLOW-TREE

AFTER CHARLES DICKENS

MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE

AFTER ROBERT BROWNING

HOME TRUTHS FROM ABROAD

I

II

AFTER BROWNING

THE COCK AND THE BULL

A STACCATO TO O LE LUPE

ANGELO ORDERS HIS DINNER

THE FLIGHT OF THE BUCKET

THE JAM-POT

IMITATION OF ROBERT BROWNING

THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER

UP THE SPOUT

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

X.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

AFTER WHITMAN

AN AMERICAN, ONE OF THE ROUGHS, A KOSMOS

CAMERADOS

IMITATION OF WALT WHITMAN

IMITATION OF WALT WHITMAN

THE POET AND THE WOODLOUSE

AFTER CHARLES KINGSLEY

THREE LITTLE FISHERS

THE THREE POETS

AFTER MRS. R. H. STODDARD

THE NETTLE

AFTER BAYARD TAYLOR

HADRAMAUT

AFTER WILLIAM MORRIS

ESTUNT THE GRIFF

AFTER ALFRED AUSTIN

AN ODE

AFTER W. S. GILBERT

ODE TO A LONDON FOG

PRESIDENT GARFIELD

PROPINQUITY NEEDED

AFTER R. H. STODDARD

THE CANTELOPE

AFTER A. A. PROCTOR

THE LOST VOICE

THE LOST APE

THE LOST WORD

AFTER GEORGE MEREDITH

AT THE SIGN OF THE COCK

I

II

III

IV

V

AFTER DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

A CHRISTMAS WAIL

BALLAD

Part II

CIMABUELLA

THE POSTER GIRL

AFTER JEAN INGELOW

LOVERS, AND A REFLECTION

THE SHRIMP-GATHERERS

AFTER CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

REMEMBER

AFTER LEWIS CARROLL

WAGGAWOCKY

THE VULTURE AND THE HUSBANDMAN

AFTER A. C. SWINBURNE

GILLIAN

ATALANTA IN CAMDEN-TOWN

THE MANLET

IF!

THE MAID OF THE MEERSCHAUM

QUAERITUR

A MELTON MOWBRAY PORK-PIE

FOAM AND FANGS

A SONG OF RENUNCIATION

NEPHELIDIA

THE LAY OF MACARONI

AFTER BRET HARTE

THE HEATHEN PASS-EE

DE TEA FABULA

AFTER AUSTIN DOBSON

THE PRODIGALS

ENVOI:

AFTER ANDREW LANG

BO-PEEP

AFTER W. E. HENLEY

IMITATION

AFTER R. L. STEVENSON

BED DURING EXAMS

AFTER OSCAR WILDE

MORE IMPRESSIONS

NURSERY RHYMES À LA MODE

POSTSCRIPT

A MAUDLE-IN BALLAD

QUITE THE CHEESE

AFTER WILLIAM WATSON

THE THREE MICE

AFTER KIPLING

FUZZY WUZZY LEAVES US

A BALLAD

JACK AND JILL

THE LEGEND OF REALISM

AFTER STEPHEN PHILLIPS

LITTLE JACK HORNER

AFTER FIONA McLEOD, W. B. YEATS, AND OTHERS

THE CULT OF THE CELTIC

AFTER VARIOUS WRITERS OF VERS DE SOCIÉTÉ

BEHOLD THE DEEDS!

I

II

III

IV

V

ENVOY

CULTURE IN THE SLUMS

A BALLADE OF BALLADE-MONGERS

ENVOY

AFTER VARIOUS POPULAR SONGS

BEAUTIFUL SNOW

THE NEWEST THING IN CHRISTMAS CAROLS

THE TALE OF LORD LOVELL

"SONGS WITHOUT WORDS"

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN

TURTLE SOUP

SOME DAY

IF I SHOULD DIE TO-NIGHT

A LOVE SONG

OLD FASHIONED FUN

THEMES WITH VARIATIONS

HOME SWEET HOME WITH VARIATIONS

Fantasia I

II

III

IV

V

VI

MODERN VERSIFICATION ON ANCIENT THEMES

GOOSE À LA MODE

THREE CHILDREN SLIDING

JACK AND JILL

JACK AND JILL

THE REJECTED "NATIONAL HYMNS"

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

A THEME WITH VARIATIONS

THEME

SONG

THE POETS AT TEA

THE POETS AT A HOUSE-PARTY

The Limerick

AN OLD SONG BY NEW SINGERS

TRIOLET

RONDEAU

VILLANELLE

INDEX OF TITLES

INDEX OF AUTHORS

INDEX OF AUTHORS PARODIED

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE