I'm blest
If it isn't the saaeme oop yonder, fur them as 'as it's the best.

'Tisn' them as 'as munny as breaeks into 'ouses an' steaels,
Them as 'as cooets to their backs an 'taaekes their regular meaels.
Noae, but it's them as niver knaws wheer a meael's to be 'ad.
Taaeke my word for it, Sammy, the poor in a loomp is bad.

Them or thir feythers, tha sees, mun 'a beaen a laaezy lot.
Fur work mun 'a gone to the gittin' whiniver munny was got.
Feyther 'ad ammost nowt; leaestways 'is munny was 'id.
But 's tued an' moil'd 'issen deaed, an' 'e died a good un, 'e did.

Loooek thou theer wheer Wrigglesby beck cooms out by the 'ill!
Feyther run oop to the farm, an' I runs oop to the mill;
An' I'll run oop to the brig, an' that thou'll live to see;
And if thou marries a good un I'll leaeve the land to thee.

Thim's my noaetions, Sammy, wheerby I meaens to stick;
But if 'thou marries a bad un, I'll leaeve the land to Dick.--
Coom oop, proputty, proputty--that's what I 'ears 'im saaey--
Proputty, proputty, proputty--canter an' canter awaaey.

_Lord Tennyson._

FIN DE SIECLE

Life is a gift that most of us hold dear:
I never asked the spiteful gods to grant it;
Held it a bore--in short; and now it's here,
I do not want it.

Thrust into life, I eat, smoke, drink, and sleep,
My mind's a blank I seldom care to question;
The only faculty I active keep
Is my digestion.

Like oyster on his rock, I sit and jest
At others' dreams of love or fame or pelf,
Discovering but a languid interest
Even in myself.

An oyster: ah! beneath the quiet sea
To know no care, no change, no joy, no pain,
The warm salt water gurgling into me
And out again.

While some in life's old roadside inns at ease
Sit careless, all unthinking of the score
Mine host chalks up in swift unseen increase
Behind the door;

Bound like Ixion on life's torture-wheel,
I whirl inert in pitiless gyration,
Loathing it all; the one desire I feel,
Annihilation!

_Unknown._

THEN AG'IN

Jim Bowker, he said, ef he'd had a fair show,
And a big enough town for his talents to grow,
And the least bit assistance in hoein' his row,
Jim Bowker, he said,
He'd filled the world full of the sound of his name,
An' clim the top round in the ladder of fame.
It may have been so;