(_WITH APOLOGIES TO MR. HENRY KENDATT, AUTHOR OF "ASTARTE," IN THE
"BOOKMAN."_)
[Illustration: ('Arriet.)]
Across the wind-blown bridges,
O look, lugubrious Night!
She comes, the red-haired beauty
Illumined by gaslight!
By London's dim gaslight!
So hush, ye cads, your roar!
Behind her plumes are waving
Her oil'd fringe flaps before.
O 'ARRIET, Cockney sister,
Your face is writhed with jeers;
How awful is the angle
Of those protuberant ears!
Those red, protuberant ears!
And your splay feet--O lor!!!
My loud, my Cockney sister,
Where oil'd fringe flops before!
Ah, 'ARRIET! gracious 'eavens,
How your greased locks do glow!
I swoon! The "hodoration"
(I heard you call it so)
Sickens my senses so;
'Tis "Citronel"--no more,
That scents, like a cheap barber's,
That oil'd fringe hung before.
'ARRIET, my knowing darling,
Your eyes a cross-watch keep,
You're togged in shop-girl's fashion,
Your cloak is bugled deep,
Black-bugled broad and deep,
With buttons dappled o'er,
Good gr-racious! how it's grown, too--
That oil'd fringe flopped before!
That "bang" is awfully trying,
That odour maddens me.
By Jingo! you've been dyeing
Those rufous locks, I see,
Those sandy locks, I see,
They're darker than of yore.
Avaunt! I'd be forgetting
That oil'd fringe flopped before.
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