How old may Phillis be, you ask,
Whose beauty thus all hearts engages?
To answer is no easy task:
For she has really two ages.

Stiff in brocade, and pinch'd in stays,
Her patches, paint, and jewels on;
All day let envy view her face,
And Phillis is but twenty-one.
Paint, patches, jewels laid aside,
At night astronomers agree,
The evening has the day belied;
And Phillis is some forty-three.
Matthew Prior.

V

CYNICISM

GOOD AND BAD LUCK

Good Luck is the gayest of all gay girls;
Long in one place she will not stay:
Back from your brow she strokes the curls,
Kisses you quick and flies away.
But Madame Bad Luck soberly comes
And stays—no fancy has she for flitting;
Snatches of true-love songs she hums,
And sits by your bed, and brings her knitting.
John Hay.

BANGKOLIDYE

"Gimme my scarlet tie,"
Says I.
"Gimme my brownest boots and hat,
Gimme a vest with a pattern fancy,
Gimme a gel with some style, like Nancy,
And then—well, it's gimes as I'll be at,
Seein' as its bangkolidye,"
Says I.
"May miss it, but we'll try,"
Says I.
Nancy ran like a frightened 'en
Hup the steps of the bloomin' styeshun.
Bookin'-orfus at last! Salvyeshun!
An' the two returns was five-and-ten.
"An' travellin' mikes your money fly,"
Says I.
"This atmosphere is 'igh,"
Says I.
Twelve in a carriage is pretty thick,
When 'ite of the twelve is a sittin', smokin';
Nancy started 'er lawkin, and jokin',
Syin' she 'oped as we shouldn't be sick;
"Don't go on, or you'll mike me die!"
Says I.
"Three styeshuns we've porst by,"
Says I.
"So hout we get at the next, my gel."
When we got hout, she wer pale and saint-like,
White in the gills, and sorter faint-like,
An' said my cigaw 'ad a powerful smell,
"Well, it's the sime as I always buy,"
Says I.
"'Ites them clouds in the sky,"
Says I.
"Don't like 'em at all," I says, "that's flat—
Black as your boots and sorter thick'nin'."
"If it's wet," says she, "it will be sick'nin'.
I wish as I'd brought my other 'at."
"You thinks too much of your finery,"
Says I.
"Keep them sanwidjus dry,"
Says I.
When the rine came down in a reggiler sheet.
But what can yo do with one umbrella,
And a damp gel strung on the arm of a fella?
"Well, rined-on 'am ain't pleasant to eat,
If yer don't believe it, just go an try,"
Says I.

"There is some gels whort cry,"
Says I.
"And there is some don't shed a tear,
But just get tempers, and when they has'em
Reaches a pint in their sarcasem,
As on'y a dorg could bear to 'ear."
This unto Nancy by-and-by,
Says I.
All's hover now. And why,
Says I.
But why did I wear them boots, that vest?
The bloom is off 'em; they're sad to see;
And hev'rythin's off twixt Nancy and me;
And my trousers is off and gone to be pressed—
And ain't this a blimed bangkolidye?
Says I.
Barry Pain.