A BALLADE OF PROTEST

BY CAROLYN WELLS

MY Pegasus strains at his curb,

Although I have him tightly geared.

Though I protest, with speech acerb;

I cannot hold him, I’m afeard.

Oh, never has he so careered!

He’s like a bee-stung Hippodrome;

But, though his laws I’ve e’er revered,

I will not write a Cubist Pome!

To keep my seat doth me perturb;

He plunges on, with head upreared,—

As he had eaten witches’ herb,—

Raging his maddened way, unsteered.

He wants my fair word-pictures smeared

With thought laid on in polychrome!

Nay, we shall leave one fence uncleared;

I will not write a Cubist Pome!

He’d have me shape a lissome verb

Like a three-sided noun, ensphered!

He babbles of effects superb,

Produced by themes with truth veneered.

No! Till the Joy of Life is biered,

Till Reason wobbles in her dome,

Till all Fame’s other eels are speared,

I will not write a Cubist Pome!

L’ENVOI

PEGASUS, go and dree thy weird;

Down Duchamp’s staircase sadly roam;

I cannot have my laurels queered,—

I will not write a Cubist Pome!

Drawn by Oliver Herford

FOREIGN LABOR

Looking over our spring samples.

Drawn by J. R. Shaver

NINETY DEGREES IN THE SHADE

“Aren’t we having fun, Father?”

THE BUTTERFLY

BY RUTH McENERY STUART

SIS’ BUTTERFLY aimed to work all right,

But ’er wings des was heavy, an’ ’er head too light;

So she riz in de air, caze she see she was made

Jes’ to fly in de sun in de beauty parade.

An’ she ain’t by ’erself in dat, in dat—

An’ she ain’t by ’erself in dat.

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