me to blow on.

Who'll read the bantling's dawning days?--
Precocious shall he prove, and harass
The world with inconvenient ways
And lisped conundrums that embarrass?
(Such as Impressionists delight
To offer each aesthetic gaper,
And faddists hyper-Ibsenite
Rejoice to perpetrate on paper?)

Or, one of those young scamps perhaps
Who love to rig their bogus bogies,
And set their artful booby-traps
For over-unsuspicious fogies?
Or haply, only commonplace--
A plodding sort of good apprentice,
Who does his master's will with grace,
And hurries meekly where he sent is?

And, when he grows apace, what blend
Of genius, chivalry and daring,
What virtues might our little friend
Display to brighten souls despairing?
What quiet charities unknown,
What modest, openhanded kindness,
What tolerance in touch and tone
For braggart human nature's blindness?

Or what--the worser part to view--
Of wanton waste and reckless gambling,
What darker paths shall he pursue
With sacrilegious step and shambling?
What coarse defiance, haply, hurl
At lights beyond his comprehension--
An attitudinising churl
Who struts with ludicrous pretension.

I know not--only this I know,
They're getting overstrained, my ditties,
This kind of poem ought to flow
Less like a solemn "_Nunc Dimittis_."
'Twas jaunty when I struck my lyre,
And jaunty seems this yearling baby;
But, as both year and song expire
They're sadder, each, and wiser, maybe.

* * * * *

POPULAR SONGS RE-SUNG.

"_Hi-tiddley-hi-ti; or, I'm All Right_" is heard, "all over the
place," as light sleepers and studious dwellers in quiet streets are
too well aware. Why should it not be enlisted in the service of Apollo
and Momus as well as of the Back Slum Bacchus? As thus:--

NO. V.--I-TWADDLEY-HIGH-DRY-HIGH-TONED-I! OK, I'M ALL RIGHT!

AIR--"_HI-TIDDLEY-HI-TI!_"

[Illustration]

I'm a young writer grimly gay,
My volumes sell, and sometimes pay.
First log-rollers raised a rumour of a rising Star of Humour,
Who had faced the Sphinx called Life,
With amusing misery rife,
So with sin, and woe, and strife, I thought I'd have a lark.
With pessimistic pick I pottered round
Pottered round,
A new "funny" trick I quickly found,
Smart and sound,
Life's cares in hedonistic chuc