Swiftly your pride will diminish.
You will become a romance!
Horrible, horrible finish!
Fate has no sadder mischance.
You will become a romance,
Filled with “Gadzooks!” and “Have at you!”
Fate has no sadder mischance;
It would wring tears from a statue.
Filled with “Gadzooks!” and “Have at you!”
You may become a “Lazarre”—
(It would wring tears from a statue)—
“Graustark,” “Stovepipe of Navarre.”
You may become a “Lazarre”;
Fate has still worse it can turn on—
“Graustark,” “Stovepipe of Navarre,”
Even a “Dorothy Vernon”!
Fate has still worse it can turn on—
Lower you cannot descend;
Even a “Dorothy Vernon”!—
That is the limit—the end.
Lower you cannot descend.
Doomed to an end that is evil,
That is the limit—the end!
Pride of the forest primeval.
IN THE LAMPLIGHT
The dinner done, the lamp is lit,
And in its mellow glow we sit
And talk of matters, grave and gay,
That went to make another day.
Comes Little One, a book in hand,
With this request, nay, this command—
(For who’d gainsay the little sprite)—
“Please—will you read to me to-night?”