SONGS OF THE HOME.

When Jimmy, our small but significant son,

Is prey of a temper capricious and hot,

And tires of a project as soon as begun,

And wants what he hasn't, and hates what he's got,

A dutiful father, I ponder and brood,

Essaying by reason and logic to find

The radical cause of the juvenile mood

In the intricate growth of the juvenile mind.

But women and reason were never allies;

The rule of a mother is logic of thumb;

The trouble concerns, she is quick to surmise,

His rum-ti-tiddily-um-ti-tum.

O woman (though angel in moments of pain,

When angels of pity are most à propos),

Why, why won't you listen when husbands explain

The things they have thought and the knowledge they know?

And why do you smile when they beg to repeat?

And why are you bored when they make it all clear?

And why do you label their emphasis "heat,"

And bid them "Be careful; the servants may hear"?

The argument leaves me, though ever more sure,

Reproachful and angry and sullen and dumb:

It leaves her reforming my diet, to cure

My rum-ti-tiddily-um-ti-tum.

Henry.