REVENGE.
A spitcat sate on a garden gate
And a snapdog fared beneath;
Careless and free was his mien, and he
Held a fiddle-string in his
teeth.
She marked his march, she wrought an arch
Of her back and blew up her
tail;
And her eyes were green as ever were seen,
And she uttered a woful wail.
The spitcat’s plaint was as follows:
“It ain’t
That I am to music a foe;
For fiddle-strings bide in my own inside,
And I twang them soft and
low.
“But that dog has trifled with art
and rifled
A kitten of mine, ah me!
That catgut slim was marauded from him:
’Tis the string that
men call E.”
Then she sounded high, in the key of Y,
A note that cracked the tombs;
And the missiles through the firmament
flew
From adjacent sleeping-rooms.
As her gruesome yell from the gate-post
fell
She followed it down to earth;
And that snapdog wears a placard that
bears
The inscription: “Blind
from birth.”
THE GENESIS OF EMBARRASSMENT.
When Adam first saw Eve he said:
“O lovely creature, share my bed.”
Before consenting, she her gaze
Fixed on the greensward to appraise,
As well as vision could avouch,
The value of the proffered couch.
And seeing that the grass was green
And neatly clipped with a machine—
Observing that the flow’rs were
rare
Varieties, and some were fair,
The posts of precious woods, besprent
With fragrant balsams, diffluent,
And all things suited to her worth,
She raised her angel eyes from earth
To his and, blushing to confess,
Murmured: “I love you, Adam—yes.”
Since then her daughters, it is said,
Look always down when asked to wed.
IN CONTUMACIAM.
Och! Father McGlynn,
Ye appear to be in
Fer a bit of a bout wid the Pope;
An’ there’s divil
a doubt
But he’s knockin’
ye out
While ye’re hangin’ onto the
rope.
An’ soon ye’ll
lave home
To thravel to Rome,
For its bound to Canossa ye are.
Persistin’ to shtay
When ye’re ordered away—
Bedad! that is goin’ too far!
RE-EDIFIED.
Lord of the tempest, pray refrain
From leveling this church again.
Now in its doom, as so you’ve willed
it,
We acquiesce. But you’ll
rebuild it.
A BULLETIN.
“Lothario is very low,”
So all the doctors tell.
Nay, nay, not so—he
will be, though,
If ever he get well.