To left she moved her bonnet,
I bent my head to right
The stage to look upon it;
But ere I had a sight,
Back came that Eiffel bonnet
And blotted out the light.
O awful Eiffel bonnet
That towers to the sky!
If ladies still will don it,
’Twill happen by-and-by,
“Down with that Eiffel bonnet!”
Poor playgoers will cry.
To see a swaying bonnet
We don’t go to the play,
’Tis not to gaze upon it
Our ten-and-six we pay—
So d—— the Eiffel bonnet
That damns the matinée!
To a Fair Musician.
LADY next door, could your glance on me fall,
There are times when my lot you would pity,
And shut the piano that stands by the wall,
And spare me your favourite ditty.
That music hath charms I’m the last to deny,
But music from eight to eleven
Is apt the weak nerves of a poet to try,
And to hasten his journey to heaven.
In vain in my study on work I’ve in hand
I endeavour to fix my attention—
That moment you sit yourself down to your “grand,”
And I use a nice word I won’t mention.
O lady, I know you are gentle and fair,
And I grant that you play very nicely;
But if you are anxious my reason to spare,
Don’t start, ma’am, at eight so precisely.
I wait for that moment, each nerve on the strain—
I tremble with wild agitation;
A thousand sharp needles seem pricking my brain
And I’m bathed in a cold perspiration.