le!) Oh, no, I didn't,
Though long mine eyes did stare;
The cubes closed down and shut her out;
I wept in deep despair;
But this I know, and know full well--
_She simply wasn't there!_

_Charles Hanson Towne._

A MELTON MOWBRAY PORK-PIE

Strange pie that is almost a passion,
O passion immoral for pie!
Unknown are the ways that they fashion,
Unknown and unseen of the eye.
The pie that is marbled and mottled,
The pie that digests with a sigh:
For all is not Bass that is bottled,
And all is not pork that is pie.

_Richard Le Gallienne._

ISRAFIDDLESTRINGS

In heaven a Spirit doth dwell
Whose heart strings are a fiddle,
(The reason he sings so well--
This fiddler Israfel),
And the giddy stars (will any one tell
Why giddy?) to attend his spell
Cease their hymns in the middle.

On the height of her go
Totters the Moon, and blushes
As the song of that fiddle rushes
Across her bow.
The red Lightning stands to listen,
And the eyes of the Pleiads glisten
As each of the seven puts its fist in
Its eye, for the mist in.

And they say--it's a riddle--
That all these listening things,
That stop in the middle
For the heart-strung fiddle
With such the Spirit sings,
Are held as on the griddle
By these unusual strings.

Wherefore thou art not wrong,
Israfel! in that thou boastest
Fiddlestrings uncommon strong;
To thee the fiddlestrings belong
With which thou toastest
Other hearts as on a prong.

Yes! heaven is thine, but this
Is a world of sours and sweets,
Where cold meats are cold meats,
And the eater's most perfect bliss
Is the shadow of him who treats.

If I could griddle
As Israfiddle
Has griddled--he fiddle as I,--
He might not fiddle so wild a riddle
As this mad melody,
While the Pleiads all would leave off in the middle
Hearing my griddle-cry.

_Unknown._

AFTER DILETTANTE CONCETTI

"Why do you wear your hair like a man,
Sister Helen?
This week is the third since you began."
"I'm writing a ballad; be still if you can,
Little brother.
(O Mother Carey, mother!
What chickens are these between sea and heaven?)"

"But why does your figure appear so lean,
Sister Helen?
And why do you dress in sage, sage green?"
"Children should never be heard, if seen,
Little brother?
(O Mother Carey, mother!
What fowls