Villon's Straight Tip to all Cross Coves

V

Thou, for whose fear the figurative crow

I eat, accursed be thou and all thy kin!
Thee will I show up-yea, up will I show
Thy too thick buckwheats, and thy tea too thin.
Ay! here I dare thee, ready for the fray!
Thou dost not keep a first-class house, I say!
It does not with the advertisements agree.
Thou lodgest a Briton with a pugaree,

And thou hast harbored Jacobses and Cohns,
Also a Mulligan. Thus denounce I thee!

Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!

399

ENVOY

Boarders! the worst I have not told to ye:
She hath stole my trousers, that I may not flee
Privily by the window. Hence these groans,

There is no fleeing in a robe de nuit.

Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!

H. C. Bunner.

VILLON'S STRAIGHT TIP TO ALL CROSS COVES

"

'Tout aux tavernes et aux fiells"

SUPPOSE you screeve? or go cheap-jack?
Or fake the broads? or fig a nag?
Or thimble-rig? or knap a yack?

Or pitch a snide? or smash a rag?
Suppose you duff? or nose and lag?
Or get the straight, and land your pot?
How do you melt the multy swag?
Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

Fiddle, or fence, or mace, or mack;
Or moskeneer, or flash the drag;
Dead-lurk a crib, or do a crack;

Pad with a slang, or chuck a fag;

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

“O 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.

Он! 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 circled 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,