Phyllis Lee

WING TEE WEE

Он, Wing Tee Wee

Was a sweet Chinee,

And she lived in the town of Tac.
Her eyes were blue,

And her curling queue

Hung dangling down her back;
And she fell in love with gay Win Sil
When he wrote his name on a laundry bill.

And, oh, Tim Told

Was a pirate bold,

And he sailed in a Chinese junk;
And he loved, ah me!

Sweet Wing Tee Wee,

But his valiant heart had sunk; So he drowned his blues in fickle fizz, And vowed the maid would yet be his.

So bold Tim Told

Showed all his gold

To the maid in the town of Tac;
And sweet Wing Wee

Eloped to sea,

And nevermore came back;

For in far Chinee the maids are fair,
And the maids are false,-as everywhere.

139

J. P. Denison.

PHYLLIS LEE

BESIDE a Primrose 'broider'd Rill
Sat Phyllis Lee in Silken Dress
Whilst Lucius limn'd with loving skill
Her likeness, as a Shepherdess.
Yet tho' he strove with loving skill
His Brush refused to work his Will.

"Dear Maid, unless you close your Eyes
I cannot paint to-day,” he said;
"Their Brightness shames the very Skies

And turns their Turquoise into Lead."
Quoth Phyllis, then, "To save the Skies
And speed your Brush, I'll shut my Eyes."

Now when her Eyes were closed, the Dear,
Not dreaming of such Treachery,
Felt a Soft Whisper in her Ear,

"Without the Light, how can one See?"

"If you are sure that none can see
I'll keep them shut," said Phyllis Lee.

Oliver Herford.

THE SORROWS OF WERTHER

WERTHER had a love for Charlotte
Such as words could never utter;
Would you know how first he met her?
She was cutting bread and butter.

Charlotte was a married lady,

And a moral man was Werther, And for all the wealth of Indies, Would do nothing for to hurt her.

So he sigh'd and pined and ogled,
And his passion boil'd and bubbled,
Till he blew his silly brains out,

And no more was by it troubled.

Charlotte, having seen his body
Borne before her on a shutter,

Like a well-conducted person,
Went on cutting bread and butter.

W. M. Thackeray.

Rory O'More; or Good Omens

THE UNATTAINABLE

Tom's album was filled with the pictures of belles
Who had captured his manly heart,

From the fairy who danced for the front-row swells
To the maiden who tooled her cart;

But one face as fair as a cloudless dawn
Caught my eye, and I said, "Who's this?"
"Oh, that," he replied, with a skilful yawn,
"Is the girl I couldn't kiss."

Her face was the best in the book, no doubt,
But I hastily turned the leaf,

For my friend had let his cigar go out,
And I knew I had bared his grief:
For caresses we win and smiles we gain
Yield only a transient bliss,

And we're all of us prone to sigh in vain
For "the girl we couldn't kiss."

141

Harry Romaine.

RORY O'MORE; OR, GOOD OMENS

YOUNG Rory O'More, courted Kathleen Bawn,
He was bold as a hawk,-she as soft as the dawn;
He wish'd in his heart pretty Kathleen to please,
And he thought the best way to do that' was to tease.

"Now, Rory, be aisy," sweet Kathleen would cry,
(Reproof on her lip, but a smile in her eye),

"With your tricks I don't know, in troth, what I'm about, Faith you've teased till I've put on my cloak inside out." "Oh, jewel," says Rory, "that same is the way You've thrated my heart for this many a day; And 'tis plaz'd that I am, and why not to be sure? For 'tis all for good luck," says bold Rory O'More.

"Indeed, then," says Kathleen, "don't think of the like, For I half gave a promise to soothering Mike; The ground that I walk on he loves, I'll be bound." "Faith," says Rory, "I'd rather love you than the ground."

"Now, Rory, I'll cry if you don't let me go;
Sure I drame ev'ry night that I'm hating you so!"
"Oh," says Rory, "that same I'm delighted to hear,
For drames always go by conthraries, my dear;
Oh! jewel, keep draming that same till you die,
And bright morning will give dirty night the black lie!
And 'tis plaz'd that I am, and why not, to be sure?
Since 'tis all for good luck," says bold Rory O'More.

"Arrah, Kathleen, my darlint, you've teas'd me enough, Sure I've thrash'd for your sake Dinny Grimes and Jim Duff;

And I've made myself, drinking your health, quite a baste,
So I think, after that, I may talk to the praste."
Then Rory, the rogue, stole his arm around her neck,
So soft and so white, without freckle or speck,
And he look'd in her eyes that were beaming with light,
And he kiss'd her sweet lips;-don't you think he was
right?

Now, Rory, leave off, sir; you'll hug me no more, That's eight times to-day you have kiss'd me before." "Then here goes another," says he, "to make sure, For there's luck in odd numbers," says Rory O'More. Samuel Lover.

A DIALOGUE FROM PLATO

"Le temps le mieux employé est celui qu'on perd.”

-CLAUDE TILLIER.

I'D read three hours. Both notes and text
Were fast a mist becoming;

In bounced a vagrant bee, perplexed,
And filled the room with humming.

Then out. The casement's leafage sways,

And, parted light, discloses

Miss Di., with hat and book,-a maze
Of muslin mixed with roses.

A Dialogue from Plato

"You're reading Greek?" "I am-and you?" "O, mine's a mere romancer!"

"So Plato is." "Then read him-do; And I'll read mine in answer."

I read: "My Plato (Plato, too,-
That wisdom thus should harden!)
Declares 'blue eyes look doubly blue
Beneath a Dolly Varden.''

She smiled. "My book in turn avers
(No author's name is stated)
That sometimes those Philosophers
Are sadly mis-translated."

"But hear, the next's in stronger style:
The Cynic School asserted

That two red lips which part and smile
May not be controverted!"

She smiled once more "My book, I find,
Observes some modern doctors

Would make the Cynics out a kind

Of album-verse concoctors."

Then I-"Why not?

Ephesian law,

No less than time's tradition,

Enjoined fair speech on all who saw
Diana's apparition.'"

She blushed-this time. "If Plato's page
No wiser precept teaches,
Then I'd renounce that doubtful sage,
And walk to Burnham-beeches."

"Agreed," I said. "For Socrates

(I find he too is talking)

Thinks Learning can't remain at ease

While Beauty goes a-walking."

143