Plague on ye, come back! 
Och! ye villainous pack,
Ye slaves of the Saxon, ye blind bastard bunch! 
Whelps weak and unstable,
I only am able
The Celt-hating Sassenach wholly to s-c-rr-unch! 
Yet for me ye won’t work,
But sneak homeward and shirk,
Ye’ve an eye on the ould spider, GLADSTONE, a Saxon! 
He’ll sell ye, no doubt. 
Sure, a pig with ring’d snout
Is a far boulder baste
Than such mongrels!  The taste
Of the triple-plied thong BULL will lay your base backs on
Will soon make ye moan
That ye left me alone
On St. Grouse’s Day in the morning!

* * * * *

TO LORD TENNYSON.

ON HIS EIGHTY-SECOND BIRTHDAY, AUGUST 6, 1891.

Ay!  “After many a summer dies the Swan."[1]
But singing dies, if we may trust the Muse. 
And sweet thou singest as when fully ran
Youth’s flood-tide.  Not to thee did Dawn refuse
The dual gift.  Our new Tithonus thou,
On whom the indignant Hours work not their will,
Seeing that, though old age may trench thy brow,
It cannot chill thy soul, or mar thy skill. 
Aurora’s rosy shadows bathe thee yet,
Nor coldy.  “Give me immortality!”
Tithonus cried, and lingered to regret
The careless given boon.  Not so with thee. 
Such immortality is thine as clings
To “happy men that have the power to die.” 
The Singer lives on whilst the Song he sings
Charms the world’s heart.  Such immortality
Is better than unending lapse of years. 
For that the great god-gift, Eternal Youth,
Accompanies it; the failures, the chill fears
Tithonus knew thou may’st be spared in truth,
Seeing that thine Aurora’s quickening breath
Lives in thee whilst thou livest, so that thou
Needst neither dread nor pray for kindly Death,
Like “that grey shadow once a man.”  And now,
Great Singer, still we wish thee length of days,
Song-power unslackened, and unfading bays!

[Footnote 1:  “Tithonus.”]

* * * * *

[Illustration:  VICISSITUDES OF A RISING PERIODICAL.

The Proprietor.  “I’LL TELL YOU WHAT IT IS, SHARDSON, I’M GETTING SICK OF THE ‘OLE BLOOMIN’ SHOW! THE KNACKER AIN’T SELLING A SCRAP—­NO NOTICE TOOK OF US ANYWHERE—­NOT A BLOOMIN’ ADVERTISEMENT!  AND YET THERE AIN’T ‘ARDLY A LIVIN’ ENGLISHMAN OF MARK, FROM TENNYSON DOWNWARDS, AS WE ’AVEN’T SHOWN UP AND PITCHED INTO, AND DRAGGED ’IS NAME IN THE MUD!”

The Editor.  “DON’T LET’S THROW UP THE SPONGE YET, OLD MAN!  LET’S GIVE THE DEAD ’UNS A TURN—­LET’S HAVE A SHY AT THACKERAY, BROWNING, GEORGE ELIOT, OR, BETTER STILL, LET’S BESPATTER GENERAL GORDON AND CARDINAL NEWMAN A BIT,—­THAT OUGHT TO FETCH ’EM A FEW, AND BRING US INTO NOTICE!”]

* * * * *

WHAT HOE!  RAIKES!—­When King RICHARD—­no, beg his pardon, Mr. RICHARD KING—­says, as quoted in the Times, “That he can only assume that Mr. RAIKES purposely availed himself of a technicality to cover a statement which was a palpable suggestio falsi,” he throws something unpleasant into the teeth of RAIKES.  It is as well to remember that rakes have teeth.