In playhouse. Ere the hero flits

In handcuffs-from our pitying view. "Farewell!" he murmurs, then exits R. U.

"Farewell" is much too sighful for
An age that has not time to sigh.
"I'll see you later," or
"Good by!"

We say,

When, warned by chanticleer, you go
From her to whom you owe devoir,
"Say not good by,'" she laughs, "but
'Au Revoir!'"

Thus from the garden are you sped;
And Juliet were the first to tell
You, you were silly if you said
"Farewell!"

"Farewell," meant long ago, before It crept, tear-spattered, into song, "Safe voyage!" "Pleasant journey!" or "So long!"

But gone its cheery, old-time ring;

The poets made it rhyme with knellJoined it became a dismal thing"Farewell!"

"Farewell!" into the lover's soul You see Fate plunge the fatal iron. All poets use it. It's the whole

Of Byron.

"I only feel-farewell!" said he;

And always fearful was the tellingLord Byron was eternally

Farewelling.

Here is the Tale

"Farewell!" A dismal word, 'tis true

(And why not tell the truth about it!); But what on earth would poets do

Without it?

421

Bert Leston Taylor.

HERE IS THE TALE

AFTER RUDYARD KIPLING

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 cans and pails, Nor keep the spoil of the good brown soil in the rim of your finger-nails!

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 soapmakers' dividends!

But if 'tis 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!"

The Willows

423

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 WILLOWS

THE skies they were ashen and sober,
The streets they were dirty and drear;
It was night in the month of October,
Of my most immemorial year;

Like the skies I was perfectly sober,
As I stopped at the mansion of Shear,-
At the "Nightingale,"-perfectly sober,
And the willowy woodland, down here.

Here once in an alley Titanic

Of Ten-pins, I roamed with my soul,-
Of Ten-pins, with Mary, my soul;

They were days when my heart was volcanic,
And impelled me to frequently roll,
And made me resistlessly roll,

Till my ten-strikes created a panic
In the realms of the Boreal pole,
Till my ten-strikes created a panic.
With the monkey atop of his pole.

I repeat, I was perfectly sober,

But my thoughts they were palsied and sear,— My thoughts were decidedly queer; For I knew not the month was October, And I marked not the night of the year; I forgot that sweet morceau of Auber That the band oft performèd down here; And I mixed the sweet music of Auber With the Nightingale's music by Shear.

And now as the night was senescent,
And star-dials pointed to morn,
And car-drivers hinted of morn,
At the end of the path a liquescent
And bibulous lustre was born:
'Twas made by the bar-keeper present,
Who mixed a duplicate horn,-
His two hands describing a crescent
Distinct with a duplicate horn.

And I said: "This looks perfectly regal;
For it's warm, and I know I feel dry,—
I am confident that I feel dry.

We have come past the emeu and eagle,

And watched the gay monkey on high;