On some gaily bounding trolley?

Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa,
Who's your Captor? Doubtless he's a
Crafty sort of treasure-seeker--
Ne'er a Turpin e'er was sleeker--
But, alas, if he can win you
Easily as I could chin you,
What is safe in all the nations
From his dreadful depredations?
He's the style of Chap, I'm thinkin',
Who will drive us all to drinkin'!

Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa,
Next he'll swipe the Tower of Pisa,
Pulling it from out its socket
For to hide it in his pocket;
Or perhaps he'll up and steal, O,
Madame Venus, late of Milo;
Or maybe while on the grab he
Will annex Westminster Abbey,
And elope with that distinguished
Heap of Ashes long extinguished.

Maybe too, O Mona Lisa,
He will come across the seas a--
Searching for the style of treasure
That we have in richest measure.
Sunset Cox's brazen statue,
Have a care lest he shall catch you!
Or maybe he'll set his eye on
Hammerstein's, or the Flatiron,
Or some bit of White Wash done
By those lads at Washington--

Truly he's a crafty geezer,
Is your Captor, Mona Lisa!

_John Kendrick Bangs._

THE SIEGE OF DJKLXPRWBZ

Before a Turkish town
The Russians came.
And with huge cannon
Did bombard the same.

They got up close
And rained fat bombshells down,
And blew out every
Vowel in the town.

And then the Turks,
Becoming somewhat sad,
Surrendered every
Consonant they had.

_Eugene Fitch Ware._

RURAL BLISS

The poet is, or ought to be, a hater of the city,
And so, when happiness is mine, and Maud becomes my wife,
We'll look on town inhabitants with sympathetic pity,
For we shall lead a peaceful and serene Arcadian life.

Then shall I sing in eloquent and most effective phrases,
The grandeur of geraniums and the beauty of the rose;
Immortalise in deathless strains the buttercups and daisies--
For even I can hardly be mistaken as to those.

The music of the nightingale will ring from leafy hollow,
And fill us with a rapture indescribable in words;
And we shall also listen to the robin and the swallow
(I wonder if a swallow sings?) and ... well, the other birds.

Too long I dwelt in ignorance of all the countless treasures
Which dwellers in the country have in such abundant store;
To give a single instance of the multitude of pleasures--
The music of the nighting--oh, I mentioned that before.

And shall I prune potato-trees and artichokes, I wonder,
A