(_To Angelica, who bids him publish._)
In Memory's mystical hazes
I see a vast Gander and grey,
I see the small boy that he chases
At the head of a hissing array:
How I wept when they brought me to bay,
How I pleaded in vain for a truce!
Too frightened to shoo them away,
I could never say Boh to a Goose!
I have lived through a number of phases,
I have rhymed of the grave and the gay,
But the clatter of critical phrases,
But the moralist armed for the fray,
I have fled in unseemly dismay,
Since the Gander--'tis all my excuse--
For, in brief, since that terrible day--
I could never say Boh to a Goose!
It was fabled of old that in places
Grow goose-bearing trees by the way,
Where bough within bough interlaces
Green geese flutter down from the spray;
In reviews, at first nights of the play,
These shrubs are in general use,
And I would not encounter them, nay,
I could _never_ say Boh to a Goose!
_Envoy._
ANGELICA! bid me essay
The deeds of a WALLACE or BRUCE,
But talk not of _publishing_, pray--
I could never say Boh to a Goose!
* * * * *
IRISH APPOINTMENT EXTRAORDINARY (_subject to the kind permission
of Sir Bernard Burke, C.B., LL.D._).--The Right Hon. JOSEPH
O'CHAMBERLAIN, M.P., to be Ulster-King-of-Arms.
* * * * *
NOTE BY AUGUSTUS DRURIOLANUS, AFTER THE GRANTING OF THE LICENCE TO
THE EMPIRE THEATRE.--"_L'Empire c'est la_ pay 46 per cent.--like the
Alhambra."
* * * * *
[Illustration: THINGS ONE WOULD RATHER HAVE LEFT UNSAID.
_Professor Chatterleigh._ "BY GEORGE! I'M SO HUNGRY I CAN'T _TALK!_"
_Fair Hostess (on hospitable thoughts intent)._ "OH, I'M _SO_ GLAD!"]
* * * * *