I am, I think I have remarked,
Terrifically old,
(The second Ice-age was a farce,
The first was rather cold.)

A friend of mine, a trilobite
Had gathered in his youth,
When trilobites _were_ trilobites,
This all-important truth.

We aged ones play solemn parts--
Sire--guardian--uncle--king.
Affection is the salt of life,
Kindness a noble thing.

The old alone may comprehend
A sense in my decree;
But--if you find a fish on land,
Oh throw it in the sea.

* * * * *

ON THE DISASTROUS SPREAD OF AESTHETICISM IN ALL CLASSES.

Impetuously I sprang from bed,
Long before lunch was up,
That I might drain the dizzy dew
From day's first golden cup.

[Illustration]

In swift devouring ecstacy
Each toil in turn was done;
I had done lying on the lawn
Three minutes after one.

For me, as Mr. Wordsworth says,
The duties shine like stars;
I formed my uncle's character,
Decreasing his cigars.

But could my kind engross me? No!
Stern Art--what sons escape her?
Soon I was drawing Gladstone's nose
On scraps of blotting paper.

[Illustration]

Then on--to play one-fingered tunes
Upon my aunt's piano.
In short, I have a headlong soul,
I much resemble Hanno.

(Forgive the entrance of the not
Too cogent Carthaginian.
It may have been to make a rhyme;
I lean to that opinion).

[Illustration]

Then my great work of book research
Till dusk I took in hand--
The forming of a final, sound
Opinion on _The Strand_.

But when I quenched the midnight oil,
And closed _The Referee_,
Whose thirty volumes folio
I take to bed with me,

I had a rather funny dream,
Intense, that is, and mystic;
I dreamed that, with one leap and yell,
The world became artistic.

The Shopmen, when their souls were still,
Declined to open shops--

[Illustration]

And Cooks recorded frames of mind
In sad and subtle chops.

[Illustration]

The stars were weary of routine:
The trees in the plantation
Were growing every fruit at once,
In search of a sensation.

The moon went for a moonlight stroll,
And tried to be a bard,
And gazed enraptured at itself:
I left it trying hard.

The sea had nothing but a mood
Of 'vague ironic gloom,'
With which t'explain its presence in
My upstairs drawin