ese will simply brand you Tory,
Nothing more and nothing less:
You who waked the world from slumber,
You, who shone in Progress' van,
You'll be then a mere Back Number,
Obsolete as good Queen Anne!

You I see with zeal excessive
Dying then for causes, which
Now (forsooth) you call Progressive,
In reaction's Final Ditch:
By Conservatives in caucus
(Ardent youth, reflect on that!)
Sent to stem the horrid raucous
Clamours of the Democrat . . .

No: I do not wish to quarrel
With your high exalted sense;
No: there isn't any moral--
Not of any consequence:
Only, 'neath your exhortations
Passive while we're doomed to sit,
Themes like these conduce to patience,--
And I thought I'd mention it.

PAGEANTS

My Tityrus! and is't a fact
(As wondrous facts there are)
That History's scenes thou wouldst enact
Beside the banks of Cher?
Wilt thou for pomps like these desert
Thy calm and cloistered lair,
Not quite so young as once thou wert,
Nor (pardon me) so fair?

We saw thee stalk in youthful prime
With high Proctorial mien:
We saw the majesty sublime
Which marked the Junior Dean;
O pundit grave! O sage M.A.!
Say in what happy part
Thou wilt before the crowd display
Thy histrionic art!

With cranium bald, which ne'er again
Will need the barber's shear,
Wilt thou present in Charles his train
Some long-locked Cavalier?
A sober Don for all to see
Who once didst walk abroad,
Wilt now an Ancient Briton be
And painted blue with woad?

Me from such scenes afar remove,
And hide my shuddering head
Where Nature doth in field and grove
Her fairer pageant spread:
There will I meditating lie
'Mid summer's calm delights,--
But thou wilt walk adown the High
My Tityrus,--in Tights. . . .

RULES FOR FICTION

A Novelist, whose magic art,
Had plumbed ('twas said) the human heart,
Whom for the penetrative ken
Wherewith he probed the souls of men
The Public and the Public's wife
Declared synonymous with Life,--
Sat idle, being much perplexed
What Attitude to study next,
Because he would not wholly tell
Which Pose was likeliest to sell.
To him the Muse: "Why seek afar
For things that on the threshold are?
Why thus evolve with c