Une adresse et quelques references'

"'Mon adresse--c'est Leycesster Sqvare,
Et pour reference j'espere
Que la statue de Shakespeare vous suffira,'
'Ah! connais-tu ma mie,
La fille du sergent?' 'Si;
Mais elle est morte comme un rat!'

"'Si defunte est ma belle,
Prenez, s'il vous plait, ma selle,
Et ma bride, et mon cheval incomparable;
Car il ne faut rien dire,
Mais vite, vite m'ensevelir
Dans un desert sec et desagreable.'

"'Ah! mon brave, arrete-toi.
Je suis ton unique choix;
La fille du sergent sans peur!
Pour mon trousseau, c'est modeste,
Vous le voyez! Pour le reste,
Je t'epouse dans une demi-heure!'

"Mais le jeune homme epouvante
Sur son cheval vite remontait,
La liberte lui etait trop chere!
Et la pauvre fille degoutee
N'avait qu'a reprendre sa route, et
Son adresse est encore Leycesster Sqvare."

The chiefs of the Permanent Civil Service are not usually, as Swift
said, "blasted with poetic fire," but this delightful ditty is from the
pen of Mr. Henry Graham, the Clerk of the Parliaments.

Of the metrical parodists of the present hour two are extremely good.
Mr. Owen Seaman is, beyond and before all his rivals, "up to date," and
pokes his lyrical fun at such songsters as Mr. Alfred Austin, Mr.
William Watson, Mr. Rudyard Kipling, and Mr. Richard Le Gallienne. But
"Q." is content to try his hand on poets of more ancient standing; and
he is not only of the school but of the lineage of "C.S.C." I have said
before that I forbear, as a rule, to quote from books as easily
accessible as _Green Bays;_ but is there a branch of the famous "Omar
Khayyam Club" in Manchester? If there be, to it I offer this delicious
morsel, only apologizing to the uninitiated reader for the pregnant
allusiveness, which none but a sworn Khayyamite can perfectly
apprehend:--

MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

Wake! for the closed Pavilion doors have kept
Their silence while the white-eyed Kaffir slept,
And wailed the Nightingale with "Jug, jug, jug!"
Whereat, for empty cup, the White Rose wept.

Enter with me where yonder door hangs out
Its Red Triangle to a world of drought,
Inviting to the Palace of the Djinn,
Where death, Aladdin, waits as Chuckerout.

Methought, last night, that one in suit of woe
Stood by the Tavern-door and whispered, "Lo!
The