Bonnet, or tout, or mump and gag;
Rattle the tats, or mark the spot;

You cannot bag a single stag;
Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

Suppose you try a different tack,

And on the square you flash your flag?
At penny-a-lining make your whack,
Or with the mummers mug and gag?
For nix, for nix the dibbs you bag!
At any graft, no matter what,

Your merry goblins soon stravag:
Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

THE MORAL

It's up the spout and Charley Wag
With wipes and tickers and what not
Until the squeezer nips your scrag,

Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

William Ernest Henley.

CULTURE IN THE SLUMS

Inscribed to an Intense Poet

RONDEAU

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 nor 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!"

Culture in the Slums

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,

401

"O crikey, Bill!"

II. VILLANELLE

Now ain't they utterly too-too

(She ses, my Missus mine, ses she), Them flymy little bits of Blue.

Joe, just you kool 'em-nice and skew
Upon our old meogginee,

Now ain't they utterly too-too?

They're better than a pot'n' a screw,
They're equal to a Sunday spree,

Them flymy little bits of Blue!

Suppose I put 'em up the flue,

And booze the profits, Joe? Not me.

Now ain't they utterly too-too?

I do the 'Igh Art fake, I do.

Joe, I'm consummate; and I see

Them flymy little bits of Blue.

Which Joe, is why I ses ter you

Esthetic-like, and limp, and free

Now ain't they utterly too-too,
Them flymy little bits of Blue?

III. BALLADE

I often does a quiet read

At Booty Shelly's poetry;

I thinks that Swinburne at a screed

Is really almost too too fly;

At Signor Vagna's harmony
I likes a merry little flutter;

I've had at Pater many a shy;
In fact, my form's the Bloomin' Utter.

My mark's a tidy little feed,

And 'Enery Irving's gallery,
To see old 'Amlick do a bleed,
And Ellen Terry on the die,
Or Frankey's ghostes at hi-spy,
And parties carried on a shutter.

Them vulgar Coupeaus is my eye!
In fact my form's the Bloomin' Utter.

The Grosvenor's nuts-it is, indeed!
I goes for 'Olman 'Unt like pie.
It's equal to a friendly lead

To see B. Jones's judes go by.
Stanhope he make me fit to cry.
Whistler he makes me melt like butter.

Strudwick he makes me flash my cly-
In fact, my form's the Bloomin' Utter.

ENVOY

I'm on for any Art that's 'Igh;

I talks as quiet as I can splutter;

I keeps a Dado on the sly;

In fact, my form's the Bloomin' Utter.

William Ernest Henley.

THE LAWYER'S INVOCATION TO SPRING

WHEREAS, on certain boughs and sprays
Now divers birds are heard to sing,
And sundry flowers their heads upraise,
Hail to the coming on of Spring!

The songs of those said birds arouse
The memory of our youthful hours,

North, East, South, and West

As green as those said sprays and boughs,
As fresh and sweet as those said flowers.

The birds aforesaid-happy pairs

Love, 'mid the aforesaid boughs, inshrines
In freehold nests; themselves their heirs,
Administrators, and assigns.

O busiest term of Cupid's Court,
Where tender plaintiffs actions bring,-
Season of frolic and of sport,

Hail, as aforesaid, coming Spring!

403

Henry Howard Brownell.

NORTH, EAST, SOUTH, AND WEST

AFTER R. K.

OH! I have been North, and I have been South, and the

East hath seen me pass,

And the West hath cradled me on her breast, that is cirIcled round with brass,

And the world hath laugh'd at me, and I have laugh'd at the world alone,

With a loud hee-haw till my hard-work'd jaw is stiff as a dead man's bone!

Oh! I have been up and I have been down and over the sounding sea,

And the sea-birds cried as they dropp'd and died at the terrible sight of me,

For my head was bound with a star, and crown'd with the fire of utmost hell,

And I made this song with a brazen tongue and a more than fiendish yell:

"Oh! curse you all, for the sake of men who have liv'd and died for spite,

And be doubly curst for the dark ye make where there ought to be but light,

And be trebly curst by the deadly spell of a woman's lasting hate,

And drop ye down to the mouth of hell who would climb to the Golden Gate!"

Then the world grew green and grim and grey at the horrible noise I made,

And held up its hands in a pious way when I call'd a spade a spade;

But I cared no whit for the blame of it, and nothing at all for its praise,

And the whole consign'd with a tranquil mind to a sempiternal blaze!

All this have I sped, and have brought me back to work at the set of sun,

And I set my seal to the thoughts I feel in the twilight one by one,

For I speak but sooth in the name of Truth when I write such things as these;

And the whole I send to a critical friend who is learned in Kiplingese!

Unknown.

MARTIN LUTHER AT POTSDAM

WHAT lightning shall light it? What thunder shall tell it? In the height of the height, in the depth of the deep? Shall the sea-storm declare it, or paint it, or smell it?

Shall the price of a slave be its treasure to keep? When the night has grown near with the gems on her bosom,

When the white of mine eyes is the whiteness of snow, When the cabman-in liquor-drives a blue roan, a kicker, Into the land of the dear long ago.

Ah! Ah, again!-You will come to me, fall on me

You are so heavy, and I am so flat.

And I? I shall not be at home when you call on me,
But stray down the wind like a gentleman's hat: