ch it!

* * * * *

THE CONQUERED "WORTH."

(_SOME WAY AFTER POE'S_ "_CONQUEROR WORM_.")

[Illustration]

["When women no longer interest themselves in silks and
satins, ribbons and furbelows, it will be an infallible sign
that the great drama of humanity is at length played out, and
that the lights are to be turned down, and the house left to
silence and the dark."--_Daily Chronicle_.]

I.

Lo! 'tis a gala night
Within the "Rational" latter years!
A female throng, dowdy, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sits in a theatre, to see
A play of hopes and fears,
Whilst the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.

II.

Mimes, dressed in fashion now gone by,
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly:
Mere puppets they who come and go
At the bidding of a huge formless Thing
That shifts the scenery to and fro,
Ruling the World from flat and wing--
Paris and Pimlico!

III.

That motley drama--oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot;
With much of Folly, and waste of Tin,
And Vanity soul of the plot.

IV.

But see, amid the mimic rout
A mystic shape intrude!
A formless thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes! it squirms!--with mortal pangs,
Mocked at by laughter rude;
There's no more snap in its sharp fangs,
Which once that crowd subdued.

V.

Out--out are the lights--out all!
And over each pallid form,
The curtain, Mode's funeral pall,
Comes down amidst hisses in storm;
And the audience, dowdy, but human,
Uprising proclaim, with wild mirth,
That the play is the Comedy "Woman,"
And the hero the conquered "WORTH."

* * * * *

EXTREMES MEET.

It is a noticeable thing
That when Kent bines produce their crop,
Swelldom is always "on the wing,"
And Slumdom "on the Hop"!

* * * * *

THE LATEST WEATHER-WISE DOGGEREL.

_BY A SCIENTIFIC RAIN-MAKER._

[It is stated that rain may be brought down by the explosion
of dynamite and blasting-powder attached to oxyhydrogen
balloons and kite-tails.]

Evening red and morning grey
Will send the traveller on his way;
But--