No More Learning

'"

And the old man, looking sadly
Across the garden-lawn,
Where here and there a dew-drop
Yet glittered in the dawn,
Said "Go to the Adelphi,
And see the 'Colleen Bawn. '

"The word is due to Boucicault--
The theory is his,
Where Life becomes a Spasm,
And History a Whiz:
If that is not Sensation,
I don't know what it is.

"Now try your hand, ere Fancy
Have lost its present glow--"
"And then," his grandson added,
"We'll publish it, you know:
Green cloth--gold-lettered at the back--
In duodecimo! "

Then proudly smiled that old man
To see the eager lad
Rush madly for his pen and ink
And for his blotting-pad--
But, when he thought of _publishing_,
His face grew stern and sad.

[Picture: His face grew stern and sad]




SIZE AND TEARS


[Picture: When on the sandy shore I sit]

WHEN on the sandy shore I sit,
Beside the salt sea-wave,
And fall into a weeping fit
Because I dare not shave--
A little whisper at my ear
Enquires the reason of my fear.

I answer "If that ruffian Jones
Should recognise me here,
He'd bellow out my name in tones
Offensive to the ear:
He chaffs me so on being stout
(A thing that always puts me out). "

Ah me! I see him on the cliff!
Farewell, farewell to hope,
If he should look this way, and if
He's got his telescope!
To whatsoever place I flee,
My odious rival follows me!

For every night, and everywhere,
I meet him out at dinner;
And when I've found some charming fair,
And vowed to die or win her,
The wretch (he's thin and I am stout)
Is sure to come and cut me out!

[Picture: He's thin and I am stout]

The girls (just like them! ) all agree
To praise J. Jones, Esquire:
I ask them what on earth they see
About him to admire?
They cry "He is so sleek and slim,
It's quite a treat to look at him!
"

They vanish in tobacco smoke,
Those visionary maids--
I feel a sharp and sudden poke
Between the shoulder-blades--
"Why, Brown, my boy! Your growing stout! "
(I told you he would find me out! )

"My growth is not _your_ business, Sir! "
"No more it is, my boy!
But if it's _yours_, as I infer,
Why, Brown, I give you joy!
A man, whose business prospers so,
Is just the sort of man to know!

"It's hardly safe, though, talking here--
I'd best get out of reach:
For such a weight as yours, I fear,
Must shortly sink the beach! "--
Insult me thus because I'm stout!
I vow I'll go and call him out!

[Picture: For such a weight as yours . . . ]




ATALANTA IN CAMDEN-TOWN


Ay, 'twas here, on this spot,
In that summer of yore,
Atalanta did not
Vote my presence a bore,
Nor reply to my tenderest talk "She had
heard all that nonsense before. "

She'd the brooch I had bought
And the necklace and sash on,
And her heart, as I thought,
Was alive to my passion;
And she'd done up her hair in the style that
the Empress had brought into fashion.

I had been to the play
With my pearl of a Peri--
But, for all I could say,
She declared she was weary,
That "the place was so crowded and hot, and
she couldn't abide that Dundreary.