d--he cried it with a will--
Was "_Vive la bagatelle!_"

Oh, there were reckless jesters then!
And when a man was hit,
He quick returned the stroke again
With trenchant blade of wit.
'Twas parry, thrust, and counter-thrust
That round the board befell;
They quaffed the wine and crunched the crust
With "_Vive la bagatelle!_"

How rang the genial laugh of Gay
At Pope's defiant ire!
How Parnell's sallies brought in play
The rapier wit of Prior!
And how o'er all the banter's shift--
The laughter's fall and swell--
Upleaped the great guffaw of Swift,
With "_Vive la bagatelle!_"

O moralist, frown not so dark,
Purse not thy lip severe;
'T will warm the heart if ye but hark
The mirth of "yester year."
To-day we wear too grave a face;
We slave,--we buy and sell;
Forget a while mad Mammon's race
In "_Vive la bagatelle!_"

A STACCATO TO O LE LUPE

BY BLISS CARMAN

O Le Lupe, Gelett Burgess, this is very sad to find:
In _The Bookman_ for September, in a manner most unkind,
There appears a half-page picture, makes me think I've lost my mind.

They have reproduced a window,--Doxey's window,--(I dare say
In your rambles you have seen it, passed it twenty times a day,)
As "A Novel Exhibition of Examples of Decay."

There is Nordau we all sneer at, and Verlaine we all adore,
And a little book of verses with its betters by the score,
With three faces on the cover I believe I've seen before.

Well, here's matter for reflection, makes me wonder where I am.
Here is Ibsen the gray lion, linked to Beardsley the black lamb.
I was never out of Boston: all that I can say is, "Damn!"

Who could think, in two short summers we should cause so much remark,
With no purpose but our pastime, and to make the public hark,
When I soloed on _The Chap-Book_, and you answered with _The Lark_!

Do young people take much pleasure when they read that sort of thing?
"Well, they buy it," answered Doxey, "and I take what it will bring.
Publishers may dread extinction--not with such fads on the string.

"There is always sale for something, and demand for what is new.
These young men who are so restless, and have nothing else to do,
Like to think there is 'a movement,' just to keep themselves in view.

"There is nothing in Decadence but the magic of a name.
People talk and papers drivel, scent a vice, and hint a