Only a dancing girl, With an unromantic style, With borrowed color and curl, With fixed mechanical smile, With many a hackneyed wile, With ungrammatical lips, And corns that mar her trips!

Hung from the "flies" in air, She acts a palpable lie, She's as little a fairy there As unpoetical I!

I hear you asking, Why-- Why in the world I sing This tawdry, tinselled thing?

No airy fairy she, As she hangs in a.r.s.enic green, From a highly impossible tree, In a highly impossible scene (Herself not over clean).

For fays don't suffer, I'm told, From bunions, coughs, or cold.

And stately dames that bring Their daughters there to see, p.r.o.nounce the "dancing thing"

No better than she should be.

With her skirt at her shameful knee, And her painted, tainted phiz: Ah, matron, which of us is?

(And, in sooth, it oft occurs That while these matrons sigh, Their dresses are lower than hers, And sometimes half as high; And their hair is hair they buy, And they use their gla.s.ses, too, In a way she'd blush to do.)

But change her gold and green For a coa.r.s.e merino gown, And see her upon the scene Of her home, when coaxing down Her drunken father's frown, In his squalid, cheerless den: She's a fairy truly, then!

THE SENSATION CAPTAIN.

No n.o.bler captain ever trod Than Captain Parklebury Todd, So good--so wise--so brave, he!

But still, as all his friends would own, He had one folly--one alone-- This Captain in the Navy.

I do not think I ever knew A man so wholly given to Creating a sensation; Or p'r'aps I should in justice say-- To what in an Adelphi play Is known as "Situation."

He pa.s.sed his time designing traps To flurry unsuspicious chaps-- The taste was his innately-- He couldn't walk into a room Without e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.n.g. "Boom!"

Which startled ladies greatly.

He'd wear a mask and m.u.f.fling cloak, Not, you will understand, in joke, As some a.s.sume disguises.

He did it, actuated by A simple love of mystery And fondness for surprises.

I need not say he loved a maid-- His eloquence threw into shade All others who adored her: The maid, though pleased at first, I know, Found, after several years or so, Her startling lover bored her.

So, when his orders came to sail, She did not faint or scream or wail, Or with her tears anoint him.

She shook his hand, and said "Good-bye;"

With laughter dancing in her eye-- Which seemed to disappoint him.

But ere he went aboard his boat He placed around her little throat A ribbon blue and yellow, On which he hung a double tooth-- A simple token this, in sooth-- 'Twas all he had, poor fellow!

"I often wonder," he would say, When very, very far away, "If Angelina wears it!

A plan has entered in my head, I will pretend that I am dead, And see how Angy bears it!"

The news he made a messmate tell: His Angelina bore it well, No sign gave she of crazing; But, steady as the Inchcape rock His Angelina stood the shock With fort.i.tude amazing.

She said, "Some one I must elect Poor Angelina to protect From all who wish to harm her.

Since worthy Captain Todd is dead I rather feel inclined to wed A comfortable farmer."

A comfortable farmer came (Ba.s.sanio Tyler was his name) Who had no end of treasure: He said, "My n.o.ble gal, be mine!"

The n.o.ble gal did not decline, But simply said, "With pleasure."

When this was told to Captain Todd, At first he thought it rather odd, And felt some perturbation; But very long he did not grieve, He thought he could a way perceive To _such_ a situation!

"I'll not reveal myself," said he, "Till they are both in the Eccle- siastical Arena; Then suddenly I will appear, And paralyzing them with fear, Demand my Angelina!"

At length arrived the wedding day-- Accoutred in the usual way Appeared the bridal body-- The worthy clergyman began, When in the gallant captain ran And cried, "Behold your Toddy!"

The bridegroom, p'r'aps, was terrified, And also possibly the bride-- The bridesmaids _were_ affrighted; But Angelina, n.o.ble soul, Contrived her feelings to control, And really seemed delighted.

"My bride!" said gallant Captain Todd, "She's mine, uninteresting clod, My own, my darling charmer!"

"Oh, dear," said she, "you're just too late, I'm married to, I beg to state, This comfortable farmer!"

"Indeed," the farmer said, "she's mine, You've been and cut it far too fine!"

"I see," said Todd, "I'm beaten."

And so he went to sea once more, "Sensation" he for aye forswore, And married on her native sh.o.r.e A lady whom he'd met before-- A lovely Otaheitan.

THE PERIWINKLE GIRL.

I've often thought that headstrong youths, Of decent education, Determine all-important truths With strange precipitation.

The over-ready victims they, Of logical illusions, And in a self-a.s.sertive way They jump at strange conclusions.

Now take my case: Ere sorrow could My ample forehead wrinkle, I had determined that I would Not like to be a winkle.

"A winkle," I would oft advance With readiness provoking, "Can seldom flirt, and never dance Or soothe his mind by smoking."

In short, I spurned the sh.e.l.ly joy, And spoke with strange decision-- Men pointed to me as a boy Who held them in derision.

But I was young--too young, by far-- Or I had been more wary, I knew not then that winkles are The stock-in-trade of Mary.

I had not seen her sunlight blithe As o'er their sh.e.l.ls it dances, I've seen those winkles almost writhe Beneath her beaming glances.

Of slighting all the winkly brood I surely had been chary, If I had known they formed the food And stock-in-trade of Mary.

Both high and low and great and small Fell prostrate at her tootsies, They all were n.o.blemen, and all Had balances at Coutts's.

Dukes with the lovely maiden dealt, Duke Bailey and Duke Humphy, Who eat her winkles till they felt Exceedingly uncomfy.

Duke Bailey greatest wealth computes, And sticks, they say, at no-thing.

He wears a pair of golden boots And silver underclothing.

Duke Humphy, as I understand.

Though mentally acuter, His boots are only silver, and His underclothing pewter.