I'm the Apostle of mighty Darwinity,

Stands for Divinity-sounds much the sameApo-theistico-Pan-Asininity

Only can doubt whence the lot of us came.

Down on your knees, Superstition and Flunkeydom!
Won't you accept such plain doctrines instead?
What is so simple as primitive Monkeydom
Born in the sea with a cold in its head?

Herman C. Merivale.

SELECT PASSAGES FROM A COMING POET

DISENCHANTMENT

My Love has sicklied unto Loath,

And foul seems all that fair I fancied

The lily's sheen's a leprous growth,

The very buttercups are rancid.

ABASEMENT

With matted head a-dabble in the dust,
And eyes tear-sealed in a saline crust

I lie all loathly in my rags and rust

Yet learn that strange delight may lurk in self-disgust.

STANZA WRITTEN IN DEPRESSION NEAR DULWICH

The lark soars up in the air;

The toad sits tight in his hole;

And I would I were certain which of the pair
Were the truer type of my soul!

TO MY LADY

Twine, lanken fingers, lily-lithe,

Gleam, slanted eyes, all beryl-green, Pout, blood-red lips that burst a-writhe, Then-kiss me, Lady Grisoline!

The Romaunt of Humpty Dumpty

THE MONSTER

Uprears the monster now his slobberous head,
Its filamentous chaps her ankles brushing;
Her twice-five roseal toes are cramped in dread,
Each maidly instep mauven-pink is flushing.

411

A TRUMPET BLAST

Pale Patricians, sunk in self-indulgence,
Blink your blearèd eyes. Behold the Sun-
Burst proclaim in purpurate effulgence,
Demos dawning, and the Darkness done!

F. Anstey.

THE ROMAUNT OF HUMPTY DUMPTY

'Tis midnight, and the moonbeam sleeps

Upon the garden sward;

My lady in yon turret keeps

Her tearful watch and ward.

"Beshrew me!" mutters, turning pale,

The stalwart seneschal;

"What's he, that sitteth, clad in mail

Upon our castle wall?"

"Arouse thee, friar of orders grey;
What ho! bring book and bell!
Ban yonder ghastly thing, I say;
And, look ye, ban it well!

By cock and pye, the Humpty's face!"
The form turned quickly round;
Then totter'd from its resting-place—

That night the corse was found.

The king, with hosts of fighting men
Rode forth at break of day;
Ah! never gleamed the sun till then
On such a proud array.

But all that army, horse and foot,

Attempted, quite in vain,

Upon the castle wall to put

The Humpty up again.

Henry S. Leigh.

THE WEDDING

LADY Clara Vere de Vere!

I hardly know what I must say,

But I'm to be Queen of the May, mother,
I'm to be Queen of the May!

I am half-crazed; I don't feel grave,
Let me rave!

Whole weeks and months, early and late,
To win his love I lay in wait.

Oh, the Earl was fair to see,

As fair as any man could be;

-

The wind is howling in turret and tree!

We two shall be wed tomorrow morn,
And I shall be the Lady Clare,
And when my marriage morn shall fall,
I hardly know what I shall wear.

But I shan't say "my life is dreary,"
And sadly hang my head,

With the remark, “I'm very weary,
And wish that I were dead."

But on my husband's arm I'll lean,

And roundly waste his plenteous gold,

Passing the honeymoon serene

In that new world which is the old.

For down we'll go and take the boat
Beside St. Katherine's docks afloat,
Which round about its prow has wrote-
"The Lady of Shalotter"

(Mondays and Thursdays,-Captain Foat),

Bound for the Dam of Rotter.

Thomas Hood, Ir.

"Songs Without Words "

IN MEMORIAM TECHNICAM

I COUNT it true which sages teach-
That passion sways not with repose,
That love, confounding these with those,
Is ever welding each with each.

And so when time has ebbed away,

Like childish wreaths too lightly held,
The song of immemorial eld

Shall moan about the belted bay.

Where slant Orion slopes his star,
To swelter in the rolling seas,
Till slowly widening by degrees
The grey climbs upward from afar.

And golden youth and passion stray
Along the ridges of the strand,-
Not far apart, but hand in hand,-
With all the darkness danced away!

413

"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.

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.