The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98
February 15, 1890, by Various

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Title: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 February 15, 1890

Author: Various

Editor: Francis Burnand

Release Date: September 8, 2009 [EBook #29930]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUNCH, CHARIVARI, FEB 15, 1890 ***

Produced by Neville Allen, Malcolm Farmer and the Online
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PUNCH,

OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOLUME 98

FEBRUARY 15, 1890

* * * * *

[Illustration]

UNTILED; OR, THE MODERN ASMODEUS.

"Tres volontiers," repartit le demon. "Vous aimez les tableaux
changeans: je veux vous contenter."

_Le Diable Boiteux._

XX.

Sweet odours, radiant colours, glittering light!
How swift a change from the dusk sodden night
Of London in mid-winter!
_Titania_ here might revel as at home;
Fair forms are floating soft as Paphian foam,
Bright as an iceberg-splinter.

Dianas doubtless, yet their frost holds fire;
The snowiest bosom covers soft desire,
And these are snowy, verily.
As blanched--and bare--as Himalaya's peaks,
Light-vestured as a troop of dancing Greeks.
Waltz-measures ripple merrily.

Merrily? Yes; the music throbs with mirth,
Feet trip in time to it; yet what strange dearth
Of glee midst all these graces!
The quickening fire of spirit, passion, will,
Seems scarce to move these dancing forms or thrill
These irresponsive faces.

The Shadow smiled. "True, yet not true," he said.
"Good Form demands that men should look half dead,
And women semi-frozen.
Yet Nature lives beneath these modish masks
Somewhere, sometimes, with energy that tasks
Caste's rigid rule to cozen.

"Pygmalion's prayer breathed life into the stone,
But see yon graceful girl, with straitened zone
And statuesque still bearing.
You'd say in her the marble must invade
The flesh, in so much loveliness arrayed,
Such radiant raiment wearing.

"Whirled in the waltz's formal maze by one
Who might