OUR REAL DESIDERATUM.

Ah! I was fogged by the Materialistic,

By HUXLEY and by ZOLA, KOCH and MOORE;

And now there comes a Maëlstrom of the Mystic,

To whirl me further yet from sense's shore.

Microbes were much too much for me, bacilli

Bewildered me, and phagocytes did daze,

But now the author 'cute of "Piccadilly,"

HARRIS the Prophet, the BLAVATSKY craze,

Thibet, Theosophy, and Bounding Brothers—

No, Mystic Ones—Mahatmas I should say,

But really they seem so much like the others

In slippery agility!—day by day

Mystify me yet more. Those germs were bad enough,

But what are they compared with Astral Bodies?

Of Useless Knowledge I have almost had enough,

I really envy uninquiring noddies,

I would not be a Chela if I could.

I have a horror of the Esoterical.

BESANT and OLCOTT may be wise and good,

They seem to me pursuing the chimerical.

Maddened by mysteries of "Precipitation,"

The Occult Dream and the Bacillus-Dance;

We need Societies for the propagation

Of Useful—Ignorance!