THE CANAL.
[An attempt to express in futuristic "verse" the emotions aroused by a futuristic painting bearing the above title.]
Mud, sedimentary, coffee-colour,
And here a wedge, a sharp, keen, thrustful triangularity,
And squares that writhe in painful green,
Calling, clamouring—O venerable shade of Euclid.
Back in the ages, dusty, maculated,
Across the slate-hued fogs of time,
Behold them!—oblongs of sliding water
And cubed banks,
Bridges and barges, blatantly, wonderfully, inconceivably angular,
Calling, clamouring—canal, canal, canal!
Out on the sea, restive and sloppy,
A waste of salinity,
So they aver,
There are ships with masts, sails, halyards,
Spankers, booms and things;
There are lobsters and jellyfish—not here.
Nothing here but illimitable mysteries,
Baffling unknowledgeableness,
Fathomless, fainting from square to square,
Oblongs and nosey triangles, ever so nosey,
Shapes rhomboidal, perchance rhombohedral—who knows?
Puce and mustard-tinted—delicate,
Oh, most delicate the mustard!—
And russet, cadaverous pink,
They mingle, compaginate,
And their voices mingle,
They call me out of the frame,
They call,
Thinly and crazily,
Canal, canal, canal—slimy, crawly-crawly water!
"Literary.
Free.—Our 160-page book, 'Hints for Home Decorators,' will be sent free on receipt of 1½d. for postage. Full instructions on painting, staining, graining, varnishing, enamelling, stencilling, gilding, colour-washing, how to mix paints, colours, inks, dyes, and scores of valuable recipes."
Daily Citizen.
Now we know where our novelists get their local colour.
Rector (thanking all who have contributed to the success of the bazaar). "And as for Lady Blank, I should not like to tell you what she has done."