SONNET ON CHILLON.
(Where the electric light is now installed in the dungeon of Bonivard.)
Electric lighting, dear to modern mind,
Bright in this dungeon! Switzerland, thou art
Too mad for things quite fin-de-siècle smart!
Surely the trains, that rumble just behind,
And Vevey tramcars, in my thoughts consigned
To even hotter place, had been enough
To scare SAND, HUGO, SHELLEY, in a huff;
Make BYRON cast his poem to the wind!
Chillon, thy prison may become a place
With little marble tables in a row,
Where tourists, dressed with artless English grace,
May drink their bock or café down below,
And foreign penknives rapidly efface
The boasted names this light is meant to show.
MUSICAL NOTE.—The most tranquillising, or even somniferous melodies ever composed, must have been those written by the celebrated LULLI. The first thing by LULLI was a "Lulliby."
NEW WORDS TO AN OLD TUNE (AND A SYLLABLE TO SPARE).—Song for the SECRETARY for IRELAND:—"'Tis all for good luck, quoth bould Rory O'Mor-ley."
ALL THE DIFFERENCE—between "Sir G.O.M." and "The G.O.M."