MAECENAS.

What Bodley wight will sing a stave
To match their strumming? I would have
The manly bass of Hobbes's voice;
But Unwin's house is Hobbes's choice.
George! you've a baritone at need.

GEORGE.

Alas! my famous _Keynotes_ lead
To _Discords_.

JOHN.

I've a little thing
_Of Resurrection_. Shall I sing?

ARTHUR.

Please do; but _a propos_ of what?

JOHN.

I cannot say, unless _de bottes_.

[_Proceeds to sing a Ballad of Resurrection._

A letter-card from my dear love!
O folded page of blessed blue!
She burst her many-buttoned glove,
And ripped the perforation through.

"My love, to-night, about eleven,
With never a priest or passing-bell,
We die! and meet, with luck, in Heaven,
But anyhow at least in Hell!"

Her courage very nearly failed,
In fact she swooned along the floor;
But curiosity prevailed,
She came again and read some more.

"There is no way but this to choose;
My people fain would have us wed;
But you and I have later views,
And scorn the vulgar marriage-bed.

"Far be it from me to dictate
How best to break the mortal bond,
But personally I may state
That I shall use the village pond.

"Be punctual, love, and let us meet
For weal or woe!
This line has lost a pair of feet;
The post is now about to go."

Ay, ay, she thought, to meet were well,
But if we found each other out?
You, say, in Heaven, I in Hell,
Or else the other way about!

Nay, there be heavy odds, she said,
One fate shall save us both or damn;
We surely shall be bracketed!
She ceased and sent a telegram.

To Guy le Preux de Balthazar--
Here followed his address, and then
This pregnant message--"Right you are!"
She wrote it with the office pen.

She flashed the phrase along the wires,
Then, passing by a dagger-shop,
Bought one and wiped it on her sire's
Best graduated razor-strop.

On second thoughts, she said, I lean
To poison; true, a knife like this
Looks pretty, rib and rib between,
But people very often miss.

She sought the chemist in his place;
He sampled her with searching eye;
She looked him frankly in the face,
And told a wicked, wicked lie.

"My hen," she said,--"a bantam blend--
Has hatched a poo