nd's only bard
Should absolutely bust!

A laureate never borrows on
His coming quarter's pay;
And I mean to stop or ever I pop
My crown of peerless bay;
So I'll take the next _rapide_ to Nice,
And the 'bus to Cimiez.

_MENTONE, Feb., 1896._

IV. LILITH LIBIFERA.

Exhumed from out the inner cirque of Hell
By kind permission of the Evil One,
Behold her devilish presentment, done
By Master Aubrey's weird unearthly spell!
This is that Lady known as Jezebel,
Or Lilith, Eden's woman-scorpion,
Libifera, that is, that takes the bun,
Borgia, Vivien, Cussed Damosel.

Hers are the bulging lips that fairly break
The pumpkin's heart; and hers the eyes that shame
The wanton ape that culls the cocoa-nuts.
Even such the yellow-bellied toads that slake
Nocturnally their amorous-ardent flame
In the wan waste of weary water-butts.

V. ARS POSTERA.

[On an advertisement of _A Comedy of Sighs_.]

Mr. Aubrey Beer de Beers,
You're getting quite a high renown;
Your Comedy of Leers, you know,
Is posted all about the town;
This sort of stuff I cannot puff,
As Boston says, it makes me 'tired';
Your Japanee-Rossetti girl
Is not a thing to be desired.

Mr. Aubrey Beer de Beers,
New English Art (excuse the chaff)
Is like the Newest Humour style,
It's not a thing at which to laugh;
But all the same, you need not maim
A beauty reared on Nature's rules;
A simple maid _au naturel_
Is worth a dozen spotted ghouls.

Mr. Aubrey Beer de Beers,
You put strange phantoms on our walls,
If not so daring as _To-day's_,
Nor quite so Hardy as _St. Paul's_;
Her sidelong eyes, her giddy guise,--
_Grande Dame Sans Merci_ she may be;
But there is that about her throat
Which I myself don't care to see.

Mr. Aubrey Beer de Beers,
The Philistines across the way,
They say her lips--well, never mind
Precisely what it is they say;
But I have heard a drastic word
That scarce is fit for dainty ears;
But then their taste is not the kind
Of taste to flatter Beer de Beers.

Bless me, Aubrey Beer de Beers,
On fair Elysian lawns apart
Burd Helen of the Trojan time
Smiles at the latest mode of Art;
Howe'er it be, it seems to me,
It's not important to be New;
New Art would better Nature's best,
But Nature knows a thing or two.

Aubrey,