We’ve a first class assortment of magic;
    And for raising a posthumous shade
  With effects that are comic or tragic,
    There’s no cheaper house in the trade. 
  Love-philtre—­we’ve quantities of it;
    And for knowledge if any one burns,
  We keep an extremely small prophet, a prophet
    Who brings us unbounded returns: 
        For he can prophesy
        With a wink of his eye,
        Peep with security
        Into futurity,
        Sum up your history,
        Clear up a mystery,
        Humor proclivity
        For a nativity. 
        With mirrors so magical,
        Tetrapods tragical,
        Bogies spectacular,
        Answers oracular,
        Facts astronomical,
        Solemn or comical,
        And, if you want it, he
  Makes a reduction on taking a quantity! 
                Oh! 
    If any one anything lacks,
    He’ll find it all ready in stacks,
        If he’ll only look in
        On the resident Djinn,
  Number seventy, Simmery Axe!

        He can raise you hosts
                    Of ghosts,
      And that without reflectors;
        And creepy things
                    With wings,
      And gaunt and grisly spectres! 
        He can fill you crowds
                    Of shrouds,
      And horrify you vastly;
        He can rack your brains
                    With chains,
      And gibberings grim and ghastly. 
        Then, if you plan it, he
        Changes organity,
        With an urbanity,
        Full of Satanity,
        Vexes humanity
        With an inanity
        Fatal to vanity—­
  Driving your foes to the verge of insanity! 
        Barring tautology,
        In demonology,
        ’Lectro biology,
        Mystic nosology,
        Spirit philology,
        High class astrology,
        Such is his knowledge, he
  Isn’t the man to require an apology! 
                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 any one anything lacks,
  He’ll find it all ready in stacks,
        If he’ll only look in
        On the resident Djinn,
  Number seventy, Simmery Axe!

SPECULATION.

  Comes a train of little ladies
    From scholastic trammels free,
  Each a little bit afraid is,
    Wondering what the world can be!

  Is it but a world of trouble—­
    Sadness set to song? 
  Is its beauty but a bubble
    Bound to break ere long?

  Are its palaces and pleasures
    Fantasies that fade? 
  And the glories of its treasures
    Shadow of a shade?

  Schoolgirls we, eighteen and under,
    From scholastic trammels free,
  And we wonder—­how we wonder!—­
    What on earth the world can be!