ck each hope;
But 'tis in vain to make a fuss;
You'll have to go, my antelope."

The chance I wished for did occur;
A lady going to the East
Was willing; so I gave to her
That little antelopian beast.

I said, "This antler'd desert child
In Turkish palaces may roam,
But he is much too free and wild
To keep in any English home."

Yes, tho' I gave him up with tears,
Experience had broke the spell,
And if I live a thousand years,
I'll never have a young Gazelle.

_Walter Parke._

THE BALLAD OF THE EMEU

O say, have you seen at the Willows so green--
So charming and rurally true--
A Singular bird; with a manner absurd,
Which they call the Australian Emeu?
Have you?
Ever seen this Australian Emeu?

It trots all around with its head on the ground,
Or erects it quite out of your view;
And the ladies all cry, when its figure they spy,
"O, what a sweet pretty Emeu!
Oh! do
Just look at that lovely Emeu!"

One day to this spot, when the weather was hot,
Came Matilda Hortense Fortescue;
And beside her there came a youth of high name
Augustus Florell Montague:
The two
Both loved that wild foreign Emeu.

With two loaves of bread then they fed it, instead
Of the flesh of the white cockatoo,
Which once was its food in that wild neighbourhood
Where ranges the sweet kangaroo
That, too,
Is game for the famous Emeu!

Old saws and gimlets but its appetite whet
Like the world famous bark of Peru;
There's nothing so hard that the bird will discard,
And nothing its taste will eschew,
That you
Can give that long-legged Emeu!

The time slipped away in this innocent play,
When up jumped the bold Montague:
"Where's that specimen pin that I gaily did win
In raffle, and gave unto you,
Fortescue?"
No word spoke the guilty Emeu!

"Quick! tell me his name whom thou gavest that same,
Ere these hands in thy blood I imbrue!"
"Nay, dearest," she cried as she clung to his side,
"I'm innocent as that Emeu!"
"Adieu!"
He replied, "Miss M. H. Fortescue!"

Down she dropped at his feet, all as white as a sheet,
As wildly he fled from her view;
He thought 'twas her sin--for he knew not the pin
Had been gobbled up by the Emeu;
All through
"I'm innocent as that Emeu!"