me dejection,
But turn from howling at the moon
To literary vivisection!

[Illustration: OSCAR WILDE.]

And while they loom before our view,
Dark'ning the air that should be sunny,
Here's Oscar,[8] growing dismal too,
Our Oscar, who was once so funny!
Blue china ceases to delight
The dear curl'd darling of society,
Changed are his breeches, once so bright,
For foreign breaches of propriety!

[Illustration: GEORGE MOORE.]

I like my Oscar, tolerate
My Archer[9] of the Dauntless Grammar,
Nay, e'en my Moore[10] I estimate
Not too unkindly, 'spite his clamour;
But I prefer my roses still
To all the garlic in their garden--
Let Hedda gabble as she will,
I'll stay with Rosalind, in Arden!

O for one laugh of Rabelais,
To rout these moralising croakers!
(The cowls were mightier far than they,
Yet fled before that King of Jokers)
O for a slash of Fielding's pen
To bleed these pimps of Melancholy!
O for a Boz, born once again
To play the Dickens with such folly!

[Illustration: MARK TWAIN.]

Yet stay! why bid the dead arise?
Why call them back from Charon's wherry?
Come, Yankee Mark, with twinkling eyes,
Confuse these ghouls with something merry!
Come, Kipling, with thy soldiers three,
Thy barrack-ladies frail and fervent,
Forsake thy themes of butchery
And be the merry Muses' servant!

Come, Dickens' foster-son, Bret Harte!
Come, Sims, though gigmen flout thy labours!
Tom Hardy, blow the clouds apart
With sound of rustic fifes and tabors!
Dick Blackmore, full of homely joy,
Come from thy garden by the river,
And pelt with fruit and flowers, old boy,
These dismal bores who drone for ever!

[Illustration: GEORGE MEREDITH.]

Come, too, George Meredith, whose eyes,
Though oft with vapours shadow'd over,
Can catch the sunlight from the skies
And flash it down on lass and lover;
Tell us of Life, and Love's young dream,
Show the prismatic soul of Woman,
Bring back the Light, whose morning beam
First made the Beast upright and human!

You _can_ be merry, George, I vow!
Wit through your cloudiest prosing twinkles!
Brood as you may, upon your