A

AFTER KEATS

I.

ODE ON A JAR OF PICKLES

SWEET, acidulous, down-reaching thrill Pervades my sense. I seem to see or hear The lushy garden-grounds of Greenwich Hill In autumn, where the crispy leaves are sere; And odors haunt me of remotest spice

From the Levant or musky-aired Cathay, Or from the saffron-fields of Jericho,

Where everything is nice.

The more I sniff, the more I swoon away, And what else mortal palate craves, forego.

II.

Odors unsmelled are keen, but those I smell
Are keener; wherefore let me sniff again!
Enticing walnuts, I have known ye well

In youth, when pickles were a passing pain;
Unwitting youth, that craves the candy stem,
And sugar plums to olives doth prefer,
And even licks the pots of marmalade

When sweetness clings to them.
But now I dream of ambergris and myrrh,
Tasting these walnuts in the poplar shade.

III.

Lo! hoarded coolness in the heart of noon,
Plucked with its dew, the cucumber is here,
As to the Dryad's parching lips a boon,

And crescent bean-pods, unto Bacchus dear;
And, last of all, the pepper's pungent globe,
The scarlet dwelling of the sylph of fire,
Provoking purple draughts; and, surfeited,
I cast my trailing robe

O'er my pale feet, touch up my tuneless lyre, And twist the Delphic wreath to suit my head.

IV.

Here shall my tongue in otherwise be soured.
Than fretful men's in parched and palsied days;
And, by the mid-May's dusky leaves embowered,
Forget the fruitful blame, the scanty praise.
No sweets to them who sweet themselves were born,
Whose natures ooze with lucent saccharine;
Who, with sad repetition soothly cloyed,

The lemon-tinted morn

Enjoy, and find acetic twilight fine. Wake I, or sleep? The pickle-jar is void.

Bayard Taylor.

AFTER HEINE

IMITATION

Y love she leans from the window
Afar in a rosy land;

MY

And red as a rose are her blushes,

And white as a rose her hand.

And the roses cluster around her,
And mimic her tender grace;
And nothing but roses can blossom
Wherever she shows her face.

I dwell in a land of winter,

From my love a world apart,
But the snow blooms over with roses
At the thought of her in my heart.

This German style of poem

Is uncommonly popular now; For the worst of us poets can do it Since Heine showed us how.

H. C. Bunner.

R

COMMONPLACES

AIN on the face of the sea,
Rain on the sodden land,

And the window-pane is blurred with rain
As I watch it, pen in hand.

Mist on the face of the sea,
Mist on the sodden land,
Filling the vales as daylight fails,
And blotting the desolate sand.

Voices from out of the mist,

Calling to one another :

"Hath love an end, thou more than friend, Thou dearer than ever brother?"

Voices from out of the mist,

Calling and passing away;

But I cannot speak, for my voice is weak,
And... this is the end of my lay.

Rudyard Kipling.

AFTER HOOD

SONG OF THE SHEET

THE DRIPPING SHEET

This sheet wrung out of cold or tepid water is thrown around the body. Quick rubbing follows, succeeded by the same operation with a dry sheet. Its operation is truly shocking. Dress after to prevent re marks.

ITH nerves all shattered and worn,
With shouts terrific and loud,

WIT

A patient stood in a cold wet sheet — A Grindrod's patent shroud.

Wet, wet, wet,

In douche and spray and sleet,

And still, with a voice I shall never forget, the song of the sheet.

He sang

"Drip, drip, drip,

Dashing, and splashing, and dipping;

And drip, drip, drip,

Till your fat all melts to dripping.

It's oh, for dry deserts afar,

Or let me rather endure

Curing with salt in a family jar,

If this is the water cure.