ay he sicken'd,
Fainted, and died, nor would with ale be quicken'd;
"Nay," quoth he, on his swooning bed outstretch'd,
"If I mayn't carry, sure I'll ne'er be fetch'd,
But vow, though the cross doctors all stood hearers,
For one carrier put down to make six bearers."
Ease was his chief disease; and to judge right,
He died for heaviness that his cart went light:
His leisure told him that his time was come.
And lack of load made his life burdensome.
That even to his last breath (there be that say't),
As he were press'd to death, he cried, "More weight;"
But, had his doings lasted as they were,
He had been an immortal carrier.
Obedient to the moon he spent his date
In course reciprocal, and had his fate
Link'd to the mutual flowing of the seas,
Yet (strange to think) his wane was his increase:
His letters are deliver'd all, and gone,
Only remains the superscription.

_John Milton._

NINETY-NINE IN THE SHADE

O for a lodge in a garden of cucumbers!
O for an iceberg or two at control!
O for a vale which at mid-day the dew cumbers!
O for a pleasure-trip up to the pole!

O for a little one-story thermometer,
With nothing but zeroes all ranged in a row!
O for a big double-barreled hygrometer,
To measure this moisture that rolls from my brow!

O that this cold world were twenty times colder!
(That's irony red-hot it seemeth to me);
O for a turn of its dreaded cold shoulder!
O what a comfort an ague would be!

O for a grotto frost-lined and rill-riven,
Scooped in the rock under cataract vast!
O for a winter of discontent even!
O for wet blankets judiciously cast!

O for a soda-fount spouting up boldly
From every hot lamp-post against the hot sky!
O for proud maiden to look on me coldly,
Freezing my soul with a glance of her eye!

Then O for a draught from a cup of cold pizen,
And O for a resting-place in the cold grave!
With a bath in the Styx where the thick shadow lies on
And deepens the chill of its dark-running wave.

_Rossiter Johnson._

THE TRIOLET

Easy is the triolet,
If you really learn to make it!
Once a neat refrain you get,
Easy is the triolet.
As you see!--I pay my debt
With another rhyme. Deuce take it,
Easy is the triolet,
If you really learn to make it!

_William Ernest Henley._

THE RONDEAU

You bid me try, Blue-eyes, to write
A Ro