Lengthways curtailed to her taste
A tunic circumvents her waist,
And soothly it is passing chaste.

Upon her head she hath a gear
Even such as wights of ruddy cheer
Do use in stalking of the deer.

Haply her truant tresses mock
Some coronal of shapelier block,
To wit, the bounding billy-cock.

Withal she hath a loaded gun,
Whereat the pheasants, as they run,
Do make a fair diversión.

For very awe, if so she shoots,
My hair upriseth from the roots,
And lo! I tremble in my boots!

Owen Seaman.

TO AN OLD FOGEY

Who contends that Christmas is played out.

O FRANKLY bald and obviously stout!
And so you find that Christmas, as a fête
Dispassionately viewed is getting out
Of date.

The studied festal air is overdone;
The humour of it grows a little thin;
You fail, in fact, to gather where the fun
Comes in.

Visions of very heavy meals arise

That tend to make your organism shiver; Roast beef that irks, and pies that agonise The liver;

Those pies at which you annually wince,
Hearing the tale how happy months will follow
Proportioned to the total mass of mince
You swallow.

Visions of youth whose reverence is scant,
Who with the brutal verve of boyhood's prime
Insist on being taken to the pant-
omime.

Of infants, sitting up extremely late,
Who run you on toboggans down the stair;
Or make you fetch a rug and simulate
A bear.

This takes your faultless trousers at the knees,
The other hurts them rather more behind;
And both effect a fracture in your ease
Of mind.

My good dyspeptic, this will never do ;
Your weary withers must be sadly wrung!
Yet once I well believe that even you

Were young.

Time was, when you devoured, like other boys,
Plum-pudding sequent on a turkey-hen;
With cracker-mottos hinting on the joys
Of men.

you

Time was when 'mid the maidens would pull
The fiery raisin with profound delight;
When sprigs of mistletoe seemed beautiful
And right.

Old Christmas changes not! Long, long ago
He won the treasure of eternal youth;
Yours is the dotage-if you want to know
The truth.

Come, now, I'll cure your case, and ask no fee— Make others' happiness this once your own; All else may pass that joy can never be

Outgrown.

Owen Seaman.

ENVOI

Ere the play was done, with the frolic and fun and laughter of childish joys,

In the midst of the game the old Nurse came to take us away from our toys,

Put us, all unwilling, to bed, peacefully there to rest;

Loth as we were to be carried there, ready enough to rebel

At leaving our play and the light of day and the toys that we loved so well,

How we slept when the weary head again the pillow had pressed!

Still we sigh as the night draws nigh, children of larger growth,

Holding as dear our playthings here, to leave them equally loth,

And still the Nurse, kind Nature, comes when shadows begin to creep;

Bidding us leave, howe'er we grieve, the follies that charmed awhile,

Taking our hand through the dusky land with a sweet, ineffable smile,

Soothing, caressing the tired brow, as we close our eyes. and sleep.

A. C. D.

188

INDEX OF FIRST LINES

About fifty years since, in the days of our

daddies

A handkerchief-dropt out, you say

Ah, Postumus, we all must go.

A partnership for life-absurd!

A picture-frame for you to fill

'A Sabine farm!' Ah, would I knew

PAGE

32

130

147

131

164

148

69

As I sat down to breakfast in state

A street there is in Paris famous

At Cheltenham, where one drinks one's fill
Autumnal sunshine seems to fall

Beneath this turf that formerly he pressed

Dear, if you carelessly agree

Fhairshon swore a feud

From the tragic'est novels at Mudie's

Good-night to the season! 'Tis over
Good people all of every sort
Grinder, who serenely grindest.

Hamelin town's in Brunswick
Hear what Highland Nora said

Here lies old Hobson; death hath broke his
girt.

He was in logic a great critic

I am not ambitious at all

If this should fail, why then I scarcely know
If in the month of dark December

189