THE HOSE.

HEAR the ballad of the hose

Striped hose.

What a blissful wealth of plumpness they tenderly enclose!
Naught you'll find in ancient story

Like those shapely symmetries.
Solomon, in all his glory,

Was not arrayed in one of these
Dainty hose, hose, hose.

Nothing car compare with those

Striped with the crimson color of the fragrant-scented rose. Oh! those hose, hose, hose, hose,

Hose, hose, hose

Those softly rounded, garter-bounded hose.

There's a charm about those hose-
Silken hose-

Which, from an æsthetic standpoint, admiration will impose!

And whene'er we chance to spy them,
Then they seem our sole "Utopias,"
And we feel we'd like to buy them-
Buy them filled, like Cornucopias-
Saucy hose, hose, hose.

And the beauty they disclose

How the eye of the beholder in entranced rapture glows
On those hose, hose, hose, hose,
Hose, hose, hose-

Those grace-enveloped, full-developed hose.

You, by chance, may see those hose-
Well-filled hose-

Peeping from the mystic meshes of a labyrinth of clothes.
Damsels dark and damsels fair,
Each, mayhaps, displays a pair

Of deftly-woven, parti-colored stockings, which more winsomely allure

By the floral garniture

Of their clockings.

But the people-ah! the peopleThey that dwell up in the steeple, Far from those :

'Mid the clanging and the rumble Of the bells they never "tumble" To the hose.

At that lofty elevation,

They maintain their equipose, Suffering not the excitation

Consequent on seeing those

Shapely hose, hose, hose

White as winter's snows,

Save the stripes, so richly tinted with the blushes of the

See the long Imperial bills-
Bloated bills!

How their swoln proportions hint of choking bolus pills
For JOHN BULL, who, at the sight,
Stares and stammers with affright!

Too much horrified to reckon

All the burdens piled his neck on
By the lune,

The mad hallucination which his fancy did inspire,

The wild and weak ambition, which his foolish brain did fire,

To soar higher, higher, higher,

With a lunatic desire,

And an imbecile endeavour
Now, now to swell, or never,

To Imperial plenilune !

Oh the bills, bills, bills!
What a tale their tottle fills!
Hard to bear !

How they mount to more and more!
What a cold, cold douche they pour

On the folly of the frantic Jingo scare!
Yet our pockets fully know,
By the waxing

Of the taxing,

How they flow, and flow, and flow;
Yet the ear that daily fills

With the wrangling,

And the jangling

Of the rival Party quills,

Knows how the Country chills,

At the swelling beyond telling in the number of the bills

Of the bills

Of the bills, bills, bills, bills, bills, bills, bills, The mounting past all counting of the bills!

Punch, Oct, 25, 1879.

66

With its endless six and eightpences
All shown;

And the doctors, though one line,
To bad language doth incline,
Or a groan;

Whilst the tailor-oh, the tailor!
Was he ever found to fail, or
Ever known

Not to pile up useless details

In the manner to him prone; Fancy twill'd," and "double mill'd,' "Blue Elysian, ""braided," "drill'd,'

Till each garment that he retails

Is described in terms high flown.
Then there are bills, of course,
Sent by tradesmen, who, perforce,—
(Without doubt);

Of American sirloins sold as Scotch beef superfine,

Of suet charged but never sent, of fat skewer'd on the chine; Of rump steak at one-and-nine,

And of "rounds ""

so steep'd in brine,

That, spite resolute endeavour,
One could eat it never, never!
Nor anyhow the salt boil out.
Oh these bills, bills, bills,

Writ with skewers 'stead of quills-
They recall

Prices always going higher,

Though at Newgate 'twould transpire

Often meat had had a most decided fall.
Yes, there's scarce a line that shows
Joints overweighted,

Price o'erstated,

As one by experience knows.

Yet the whole with hope one fills,
Co-operation

Through the nation

Soon will empty butchers' tills;

Or at least bring down the prices they are charging in their

bills

With under-dash

Must make up by Tuesday week
Such a sum; so from you seek
Cash!

To assist them with their bills,
And here, too, like bitter pills,
Come the long-forgotten bills-

Accounts one fancied settled,
Till by them,newly nettled,
All the air with cries one fills,
Making moan, moan, moan,
In a muffled monotone,
At the checking of the bills-
Of the bills!

Making moan, moan, moan,
In the same old monotone,
At the reckoning of the bills!
Of the bills, bills, bills,

At the checking, the reck'ning of the bills.
With a deep and final groan,

At the bother of the bills,

Of the bills, bills, bills,

At the pother of the bills,

Of the bills, bills, bills, bills,

Bills, bills, bills,

At the bother, and the pother of the bills.

Truth, January 8, 1880.

You first made HENRY famous, so the stage historian tells,

Will the scene be now repeated which in London always greeted

His performance of Mathias in The Bells?

Or will every sneering Yankee,

In his nasal tones, say "Thankee,

I guess this is just another of your mighty British 'sells?'"

Let the thought for ever perish, that the actor whom we cherish

Could fail to lick creation in The Bells!

But if there are detractors

Of this foremost of our actors,

Of the gentlemanly IRVING-friend of TOOLE's

"They are neither man nor woman, they are neither brute nor human,"

They are fools!

I love to hear,

So soft and clear,

Their notes go sailing o'er mount and mere,
Bells, softly chime

Your sweet, low rhyme.

Ring on, still ring.

While softly the shadows creep,
Over the folded sheep.

The day is done;

Down goes the sun,

And Silence opens the gates of Sleep.

I love the sound of bells

On a glorious summer morn,
When ev'ry note that swells
Tells of a joy new born.
The wedding note
Doth lightly float,

Gaily o'er hill and dale,
Merrily, cherrily,
Madly, gladly,

Telling of joys that will never fail.

Bells, bells, bells!

Hark how their music swells!
How it floats along,

Like a glorious song!

Bells, bells, bells, bells!

Oh, teach me the joy that your glad music tells.

·:0:

Judy, October 24, 1883.

The following verses, in imitation of PoE, are quoted from a little work entitled "Original Readings and Recitations," by W. A. Eaton, published by H. Vickers, Strand. Mr. Eaton is a well-known Temperance Advocate, and the author of many. pathetic poems admirably adapted for public Recitations :

THE VOICE OF THE BELLS.

I love the sound of bells

At evening, when the sun

To the tired labourer tells

His hard day's work is done.

*It was announced that Mr. IRVING intended to make his first appearance in New York in his celebrated part of Mathias in "The Bells-"

:0:

THE BILLS.

RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO THE GENTLE READER.

HARK! the postman! he brings Bills!
Christmas Bills ! !

What a world of torment now my bosom fills!
How they trouble, trouble, trouble,

All the merry Christmas time,

While a woe unfathomable

Seems to bubble, bubble, bubble

In my mind and mars the merry Christmas chime.
For they come, come, come,
In a multiplying sum,

Admitting no evasion of their ills;

Oh the Bills! Bills!! Bills!!! Bills ! ! ! ! Bills !!!!! Bills !!!!!! Bills!!!!!!! Oh, the torment and the torture of the Bills!

And who, toiling, toiling, toiling
For their creditors' despoiling,
Find it easy all cash payments to postpone,
And find pleasure in the spoiling,
In the spoiling and the moiling,

In the spoiling of a bailiff with a stone.
They are scarcely man and woman,
They are almost superhuman-
They are kings,

And like kings can sit and sing,
While they fling, fling, fling,

Fling rocks upon their duns ;
While each dun gets up and runs
For his pistols and his guns,

And he dances and he groans,
Keeping time, time, time,
In a strange spasmodic rhyme,

To the volley of big stones,
Of big stones ;

Keeping time, time, time,

In a ghastly sort of rhyme,

To the volleying of the stones,

Of the stones, stones, stones,

To the volley of the jolly big stones.

Keeping time, time, time,

While he yells, yells, yells,

In a wild galvanic rhyme,

For the payment of his bills,

Of his Bills! Bills!! Bills!!! Bills!!!!
Bills!!!!! Bills!!!!!! Bills !!!!
For the instant liquidation of his Bills!

Free Press Flashes, 1883.

As he plays,

All the days!

How he'll stop us on our ways
With its praise !

And the people—oh, the people,
That don't live up in the steeple,
But inhabit Christian parlours
Where he visiteth and plays-

Where he plays, plays, plays—
In the cruellest of ways,

And thinks we ought to listen,
And expects us to be mute,

Who would rather have the earache

Than the music of his flute,

Of his flute, flute, flute,

And the tootings of his toot,

Of the toots wherewith he tooteleth its agonising toot,

Of the flute, flewt, fluit, floot,

Phlute, phlewt, phlewght,

And the tootle, tootle, tooting of its toot.

THE OFFICE BOY'S MOTHER IN AMErica.

"Bells, bells, bells, bells, bells!"

How their clashing, and their clanging, all thought of peace dispels

any

Oh, well might EDGAR ALLAN POE-or other poet, born in American clime

Adopt the bells, the ceaseless bells, as subject for his rhyme. From early morn, till dewy eve, their clamour resounds loud and long,

The railway train as it puffs and clatters through the streets, proclaims its passage with "ding, dong! ding, dong!" The matutinal milkman tinkle tinkles on his way, And the vegetable vendor tintinabulates "ting-a-ring! ting-aring!"-enough to drive one mad, as a body may say. The steamboat bell resounds, as if summoning the nation to its doom,

And from chapel, church, and schoolhouse--at all hoursechoes forth the solemn "boom, boom, boom!

And at any time-day or night—just as it were-to fill up the blank,

The fire-engine rushes through the streets, with its quick, "Clank-clank-clanksharp,metallic, warning voice, clank!"

It ain't till you've lived in an American city that you learn how it was they came to dub

The oh-no-we-never-mention-him with the name of Bells-ebub !

And the giddy stars, so legends say, Slowing their course, attend the play Of his wondrous heel,

Maturing her age
In her highest noon,
The enamelled moon
Reddens with rage,

And to witness, with misgivin',
(With the nautic Pleiads even,
More than seven.)

Pauses in heaven.

And they say (the starry choir
And the other gossiping things)
That Bisakeli's fire

Is owing to that tire

O'er which he sits and slings
The trembling living wire

Of those unusual wings.

But surely that angel trod
Treadles amazing flighty;
And, for a grown-up god,
Their bicycling Houris' are
His rivals-Aphrodite
Transports faster than a star!

The ecstasies he took

With such company to deal―

His leg and style, his pure caoutchouc,

With the fervour of his wheel

Well may the stars go reel !

We say thou art not wrong,
Bisakeli, who despisest
Feathers and psalming song;
Bloom thou the laurels among,
Best angel and the wisest,-

Merrily live, and long!

Ah, heaven is his'n, indeed-
This world is sweets and sours;
Our powers are puny powers,

And the slowest of his perfect speed

Is the swiftest of ours.