MINOR POETRY IN THE SERE AND YELLOW LEAF.
A candid M.P. showeth cause.
Fair Waitress at the A. B. C.,
To which I most resort,
Bring me a roll and cup of tea—
No longer bards drink port.
No more the lusty, generous vine
In bardic veins makes summer;
That's why Apollo's lyre divine
Knows but the sorry strummer.
No rich libation at the "Cock,"
Degenerate race, we pour,
And tea, not port, at five o'clock,
Is what we all adore.
In coffee, tea, and lemon squash
The Muse ne'er dips her laurel,
So what we write is either "wash,"
Or hopelessly immoral.
When life, each quarter, is made out
Of still more jaundiced hue,
The needy bard must join the shout,
His verse be jaundiced too:
But tea's the spell, these latter times,
As of some fell narcotic,
That makes us weave our random rhymes
All rotten, or neurotic.
We modern bardlets, tea-inspired,
Condemn th' "old-fashioned gang,"
And yet we miss the spark that fired
The songs our fathers sang:
Their tastes were healthier than their sons',
Their rhymes were "none so dusty,"
When bards ate beef instead of buns,
And loved their fine old "crusty."
This sere and yellow poesy
Faint draws its sickly breath,
And—doctors say—Society
Will soon acclaim its death:
No stone upon its grave we'll place,
But tea-pots at each corner—
Fair Waitress, you the scene shall grace
As chief, and only, mourner.
"M. Hanotaux, Minister of Foreign Affairs, will shortly have distributed in the Chamber and the Senate a Yellow Book relative to the conventions recently concluded between France and Great Britain for the delimitation of their respective possessions on the West Coast of Africa."
Our Artist could not be restrained from designing a Cover, which we respectfully offer to M. Hanotaux.