When you feel too utterly almost quite,

The sunflowers love, yet love not them!
Oh, weird is the feeling of thoughtsome doubt
When candles, and lamps, and gas are out,
And burglarious Philistines prowl about,
Chill is the air at four a.m.!

Oh, mystic the eyelids all drowsy grown!
Oh, fainting of lilies with broken stem!
Oh, twitching of limbs that are scarce your own,
The sunflowers love, yet love not them!
Oh, baleful blessing, the wistful wist
Of matters that have not, nor can exist !
Oh, say, have you noticed the gladsome list?
Chill is the air at four a.m. i

You think of your bed with remorseful tears,
Oh, fainting of lilies with broken stem!
While sounds of the silence attack your ears,
The sunflowers love, yet love not them!
Oh, mythic deeds by the sightless seen!
Oh, lovely past of the has not been!
Oh, what in the world do I chance to mean?
Chill is the air at four a.m. !

AN UTTER PASSION UTTERED UTTERLY. MESEEM'D that Love, with swifter feet than fire, Brought me my Lady crown'd with amorous burs, And drapen in tear-collar'd minivers, Sloped saltire wise in token of desire;

My heart she soak'd in tears, and on a pyre Laid, for Love's sake, in folds of fragrant perse, The while her face, more fair than sunflowers, She gave mine eyes for pasture most entire. Sicklike she seem'd, as with wan-carven smiles Some deal she moved anear, and thereunto Thrice paler wox, and weaker than blown sand Upon the passioning ocean's beachèd miles; And as her motion's music nearer drew

My starved lips play'd the vampyre with her hand. JOHN TODHUNter. Kottabos. Dublin, William McGee. 1882.

AN ESTHETE'S RHAPSODY.

CONSUMMATE Dish! full many an ancient crack
Is seamed across thy venerable back;

And even through to thine æsthetic face
Cracks run to lend a more enchanting grace!
What matter though the epicure now loses

The juice which through thy gaping fissures oozes ?
Thrice happy Table-cloth, thou knowest not
The too-too beauty of yon greasy spot,

To think that with a little vulgar butter,
This High Art Dish can make thee look so utter.
Harper's Bazaar.

In 1881 and 1882 Punch teemed with parodies on Oscar Wilde, one of the best appeared May 28, 1881 :

MORE IMPRESSIONS.
(By Oscuro Wildegoose.)
La Fuite des Oies.

To outer senses they are geese,
Dull drowsing by a weedy pool;

(With apologies to Oscar Wilde's "The Harlot's House.''

WE wandered home with weary feet,
We lumbered down the lamp-lit street,
And stopped beneath a public-house.

Outside, in just the usual way,
We heard the grand old cornet play
A carol to the wild carouse.

Like smell of spirits came the blast
Of heated air that streetward passed,

As "Out yer go" were shoved "the blind."

We watched the reeling roysterers spin
From scene of revelry within,
Like those who'd left their legs behind.

Like idiots they, of foolish face,
With grinning, ghastly-pale grimace,
They looked so very, very ill!

They took each other by the arm,
As if in that there were a charm,
In short they had had quite their fill.

Sometimes a man who out was set
Went through the swearing alphabet.
Or p'r'aps he'd homeward start and sing.

A ROSE, or Maidens' Ball took place, in July 1885, at Hyde Park House, which was lent for the occasion by Mrs. Naylor-Leyland. It was a complete success, in spite of the absence of Royalty. As a social gathering, it was the smartest dance of the season, while, from a girl's point of view, there has been no ball in London to equal it for many a day. Each fair donor paid five pounds, for which she was allowed to ask five men, and in almost every case the favoured five put in an appearance; so instead of the dancing-rooms being filled with girls anxiously looking for partners, the tables were turned, and the black coats had to take their turn at playing wallflowers-an amusement, to judge from some of their remarks, that they did not all appreciate. Each maiden carried a bouquet of roses, and almost all the floral decorations were confined to various varieties of the same flower.

FIVE-and-seventy maidens, free,

Bent on dancing, one and all,
Did some weeks ago decree

They, themselves, would give a ball.
Each, they said, would ask five men
Who at waltzing were au fait.

Settled was their project then,
They had even fixed the day!

Ah, miserie!

AN UN-ESTHETIC LOVE SONG.

A BARREL of beer and a glass of gin hot
Are goodly gifts for me;
For my own true love a half-gallon pot
Filled to the brim with tea.

For thee a bloater from Yarmouth town
(Fresh, O fresh, is a fish of the sea!);
For me some beef, and, to wash it down,
A pint of porter (ah me! ah me !).
Sherbet and zoedone for thee

(Teetotal drinks have taking names!);
A cup of claret and pink for me

(O! men are stronger than dames !)

From Ballades of a Country Bookworm, by Thomas Hutchinson. London, Stanesby & Co.

QUITE THE CHEESE.

By a Wilde Esthete.

1888.

THERE once was a maiden who loved a cheese
Sing, hey! potatoes and paint!
She could eat a pound and a half with ease!
O the odorous air was faint!

What was the cheese that she loved the best?
Sing, hey! red pepper and rags!

You will find it out if you read the rest;
Oh, the horror of frowning crags!

Came lovers to woo her from ev'ry land-

Sing, hey! fried bacon and files!

They asked for her heart, but they meant her hand,
O the joy of the Happy Isles.

A haughty old Don from Oporto came;
Sing, hey! new carrots and nails!

The Duke GORGONZOLA his famous name
O the lusciously-scented gales!

LORD STILTON belonged to a mighty line!
Sing, hey! salt herrings and stones!

He was 66 "Blue" as china-his taste divine!
O the sweetness of dulcet tones.

Came stout DOUBLE GLO'STER-a man and wife

Sing, hey! post pillars and pies!

And the son was SINGLE, and fair as fate;

O the purple of sunset skies!

DE CAMEMBERT came from his sunny France
Sing, hey! pork cutlets and pearls!

He would talk sweet nothings, and sing and dance
O the sighs of the soft sweet girls.

Came GRUYERE so pale! a most hole-y-man !
Sing, hey! red sandstone and rice!

But the world saw through him as worldlings can
O the breezes from Isles of Spice.

But the maiden fair loved no cheese but one
Sing, hey! acrostics and ale!

Save for single Glo'ster she love had none !
O the roses on fair cheeks pale!

He was fair and single-and so was she!
Sing hey! tomatoes and tar!

And so now you know which it is to be!
O the aid of a lucky star!

They toasted the couple the livelong night
Sing hey! cast-iron and carp!
And engaged a poet this song to write.
O the breathing Eolian harp!

So he wrote this ballad at vast expense!
Sing, hey! pump-handles and peas!
And, though you may think it devoid of sense,
O he fancies it QUITE THE CHEESE !

H. C. WARING.

ARTHUR W. E. O'SHAUGHNESSY.

Was born in 1844, and at the age of twenty obtained a position in the Natural History Department of the British Museum. In 1873 he married Miss Eleanor Marston, who assisted her husband in some of his early works, especially in a volume entitled "Toyland," published in 1875.

But Mrs. O'Shaughnessy and her two children all died in 1879, and the unfortunate young poet did not long survive them, he dying in London early in 1881.

His early books—“An Epic of Women" (1870); and "Lays of France" (1872), were successful, but "Music and Moonlight" (1874), was coldly received.

UNTWINE those ringlets! Ev'ry dainty clasp
That shines like twisted sunlight in my eye

Is but the coiling of the jewelled asp

That smiles to see men die.

Oh, cobra-curlèd! Fierce-fanged fair one! Draw Night's curtain o'er the landscape of thy hair!

I yield! I kneel! I own, I bless thy law

That dooms me to despair.

I mark the crimson ruby of thy lips,

I feel the witching weirdness of thy breath!

I droop! I sink into my soul's eclipse,

I fall in love with death!

"GEORGY."

(After J. Ashby-Sterry.)

I KNOW you, little winsome sweet,
You heroine of childish orgy;
What dance would ever be complete
Without our rosy, romping Georgy?

Straight as a dart, of which the sting
Lurks in a pair of pearl-gray eyes;
Slight, but the roundest lissome thing
As o'er the well-chalked floor she flies.
Nor can I say there is concealed
At ev'ry airy pirouette
The frill (not often so revealed!)
Of such a dainty pantalette!

Her little boots with silver heels

Ring on the boards as round she whirls

I wonder if the darling feels

She cuts out all the other girls?

There is a saucy cock of chin,

A semblance of a conscious power
To stake (with ev'ry chance to win!)
The bud against the fallen flower.

Who knows these little maidens' dreams?
Unsullied, but with mischief fraught:
How like a woman Georgy seems,
Yet by what subtle instinct taught?

The question's vague !-some day, perhaps,
She'll find the answer, for the rogue is
A match, at twelve, for most young chaps,
And right away beyond us fogies.

For me, I sit and watch her twirls,

Then wend me home and smoke my pipe, That whispers "These delightful girls, Thank goodness are in Sterry-o-type!"

Judy. June 30, 1880.

R. REECE.

It should be mentioned, in connection with Mr. J. AshbySterry, that The Muse in Manacles, quoted on page 64, was from his pen.

The following well known Ballade originally appeared in Mr. Andrew Lang's Ballades in Blue China, the first (1880) edition of which is so much prized by collectors.

BALLADE OF PRIMITIVE MAN.

HE lived in a cave by the seas,

He lived upon oysters and foes,
But his list of forbidden degrees
An extensive morality shows;
Geological evidence goes

To prove he had never a pan,

But he shaved with a shell when he chose, 'Twas the manner of Primitive Man!

He worshipp'd the rain and the breeze,

He worshipped the river that flows,
And the Dawn, and the Moon, and the trees,
And bogies, and serpents, and crows;
He buried his dead with their toes
Tucked up, an original plan,

Till their knees came right under their nose, 'Twas the manner of Primitive Man!

His communal wives, at his ease,

He would curb with occasional blows;
Or his State had a queen, like the bees
(As another philosopher trows):
When he spoke it was never in prose:
But he sang in a strain that would scan,

For (to doubt it, perchance, were morose) 'Twas the manner of Primitive Man! (Three verses omitted.) Envoy.

MAX, proudly your Aryans pose,
But their rigs they undoubtedly ran,
For, as every Darwinian knows,
'Twas the manner of Primitive Man!

ANDREW LANG.

A BALLADE OF PRIMITIVE WOMAN.
An American Parody.

SHE lived in a primitive way,
She lived in a hut made of trees,
With never a moving in May,

Unless when invaded by bees,
Her husband had never night keys,
Lodge nights were not then to deceive;
Nor was he addicted to sprees-
What a life led our relative, Eve!

He hadn't for bonnets to pay,

Which accounts for his efforts to please; Nor did he growl round every day,

O'er his trousers that bagged at the knees, Unheard of were fashion's decrees Her dolmans she knew how to weave From grape-leaves with greatest of ease, What a life led our relative, Eve!

Her stew-pans she wrought out of clay Her knives were the shells of the seas,