If love is a thorn, they show no wit
Who foolishly hug and foster it.
If love is a weed, how simple they
Who gather and gather it, day by day!
If love is a nettle that makes you smart,
Why do you wear it next your heart?
And if it be neither of these, say I,
Why do you sit and sob and sigh?
THE BRITISH TAR.
A British tar is a soaring soul,
As free as a mountain bird,
His energetic fist should be ready to
resist
A dictatorial word
His nose should pant and his lips should
curl,
His cheeks should flame and his brow should
furl,
His bosom should heave and his heart should
glow,
And his fist be ever ready for a knock-down
blow.
His eyes should flash with an inborn fire,
His brow with scorn be rung;
He never should bow down to a domineering
frown,
Or the tang of a tyrant tongue.
His foot should stamp and his throat should
growl,
His hair should twirl and his face should
scowl:
His eyes should flash and his breast protrude,
And this should be his customary attitude!
[Illustration]
THE COMING BYE AND BYE.
Sad is that woman’s lot who, year
by year,
Sees, one by one, her beauties disappear;
As Time, grown weary of her heart-drawn
sighs,
Impatiently begins to “dim her eyes!”
Herself compelled, in life’s uncertain
gloamings,
To wreathe her wrinkled brow with well
saved “combings”—
Reduced, with rouge, lipsalve, and pearly
grey,
To “make up” for lost time,
as best she may!
Silvered is the raven hair,
Spreading is the
parting straight,
Mottled the complexion fair,
Halting is the
youthful gait.
Hollow is the laughter free,
Spectacled the
limpid eye,
Little will be left of me,
In the coming
bye and bye!
Fading is the taper waist—
Shapeless grows
the shapely limb,
And although securely laced,
Spreading is the
figure trim!
Stouter than I used to be,
Still more corpulent
grow I—
There will be too much of
me
In the coming
bye and bye!
THE SORCERER’S SONG.
Oh! my name is John Wellington Wells—
I’m a dealer in magic and spells,
In
blessings and curses,
And
ever filled purses,
In prophecies, witches and knells!
If you want a proud foe to “make
tracks”—
If you’d melt a rich uncle in wax—
You’ve
but to look in
On
our resident Djinn,
Number seventy, Simmery Axe.