What a moment, what a doubt! All my nose is inside out,— All my thrilling, tickling caustic, Pyramid rhinocerostic, Wants to sneeze and cannot do it! How it yearns me, thrills me, stings me, How with rapturous torment wrings me! Now says, "Sneeze, you fool,—get through it." Shee—shee—oh! 'tis most del-ishi— Ishi—ishi—most del-ishi! (Hang it, I shall sneeze till spring!) Snuff is a delicious thing.
LEIGH HUNT.
TO MY NOSE.
Knows he that never took a pinch, Nosey, the pleasure thence which flows? Knows he the titillating joys Which my nose knows? O nose, I am as proud of thee As any mountain of its snows; I gaze on thee, and feel that pride A Roman knows!
ALFRED A. FORRESTER (Alfred Crowquill).
LAPSUS CALAMI. TO R. K.
Will there never come a season Which shall rid us from the curse Of a prose which knows no reason And an unmelodious verse: When the world shall cease to wonder At the genius of an ass, And a boy's eccentric blunder Shall not bring success to pass:
When mankind shall be delivered From the clash of magazines, And the inkstand shall be shivered Into countless smithereens: When there stands a muzzled stripling, Mute, beside a muzzled bore: When the Rudyards cease from Kipling And the Haggards ride no more?
JAMES KENNETH STEPHEN.
A CONSERVATIVE.