AFTER DILETTANTE CONCETTI "WHY do you wear your hair like a man, Sister Helen? This week is the third since you began." "I'm writing a ballad; be still if you can, Little brother. (O Mother Carey, mother! What chickens are these between sea and heaven?)" "But why does your figure appear so lean, Sister Helen? And why do you dress in sage, sage green?" "Children should never be heard, if seen, Little brother? (O Mother Carey, mother! What fowls are a-wing in the stormy heaven!) " "But why is your face so yellowy white, Sister Helen? And why are your skirts so funnily tight?" "Be quiet, you torment, or how can I write, Little brother? (O Mother Carey, mother! How gathers thy train to the sea from the heaven!)" "And who's Mother Carey, and what is her train, Sister Helen? And why do you call her again and again?" (O Mother Carey, mother! What work is toward in the startled heaven?)" "And what's a refrain? What a curious word, Sister Helen! Is the ballad you're writing about a sea-bird?" "Not at all; why should it be? Don't be absurd, Little brother. (O Mother Carey, mother! Thy brood flies lower as lowers the heaven.)" After Dilettante Concetti (A big brother speaketh:) "The refrain you've studied a meaning had, Sister Helen! It gave strange force to a weird ballad. But refrains have become a ridiculous 'fad,' And Mother Carey, mother, Has a bearing on nothing in earth or heaven. "But the finical fashion has had its day, And let's try in the style of a different lay Little brother. So, Mother Carey, mother! Collect your chickens and go to-heaven." (A pause. Then the big brother singeth, accompanying himself in a plaintive wise on the triangle.) "Look in my face. My name is Used-to-was; The common-sense of man; and I, alas! The ballad-burden trick, now known too well, And turned to scorn, and grown contemptibleA too transparent artifice to pass. "What a cheap dodge I am! The cats who dart 475 H. D. Traill. WHENCENESS OF THE WHICH SOME DISTANCE AFTER TENNYSON COME into the Whenceness Which, I am here by the Where alone; Queen Which of the Whichbud garden of What's In gloss of Isness and shimmer of Was, Shine out, little Which, sunning over the bangs, There has fallen a splendid tear From the Is flower at the fence; She is coming, my Which, my dear, And as she Whistles a song of the Whence, The Nowness cries, "She is near, she is near." And the Thingness howls, "Alas!" The Whoness murmurs, “Well, I should smile,” And the Whatlet sobs, "I pass." Unknown. THE LITTLE STAR SCINTILLATE, scintillate, globule orific, When torrid Phoebus refuses his presence Sainte Margérie Then the victim of hospiceless peregrination 477 Unknown. THE ORIGINAL LAMB O, Mary had a little lamb, regarding whose cuticular One day it did accompany her to the knowledge dispensary, Which to every rule and precedent was recklessly contrary. Immediately whereupon the pedagogue superior, Exasperated, did eject the lamb from the interior. Then Mary, on beholding such performance arbitrary, Suffused her eyes with saline drops from glands called lachrymary, And all the pupils grew thereat tumultuously hilarious, And speculated on the case with wild conjectures various. 1 "What makes the lamb love Mary so?" the scholars asked the teacher. He paused a moment, then he tried to diagnose the creature. "Oh pecus amorem Mary habit omnia temporum." "Thanks, teacher dear," the scholars cried, and awe crept darkly o'er 'em. SAINTE MARGÉRIE SLIM feet than lilies tenderer,— That scarce upbore the body of her, Unknown. White as a shroud the silken gown, Margérie! That flowed from shoulder to ankle down, On back and bosom withouten braid,— In crispèd glory of darkling red, Round creamy temples her hair was shed;- Eyes, like a dim sea, viewed from far,- Lips that no earthly love shall mar, The chamber walls are cracked and bare;- Without the gossips stood astare Five pennies lay her hand within,— So she her fair soul's weal might win, C'est ça Sainte Margérie! Dank straw from dunghill gathered,— Where fragrant swine have made their bed, Three pennies to the poor in dole, Margérie! One to the clerk her knell shall toll, And one to masses for her soul; C'est ça Sainte Margérie! Unknown. |