We'll say he said he smoked with Tennyson, And--deeper pit--_pax vobiscum_--went to vespers With Adelaide Anne Procter; helped Bob Browning elope With Elizabeth and her lapdog (said it bit him) Said he was the first man Blake told All about the angels in a pear-tree at Peckham Rye Blake drew them for him, he said; they were grackles, not angels-- (Blake's not a mid-Victorian, but you don't know better) So ... we come, being slightly irritated, to facing him down. "... And George Eliot?" we ask lightly. "_Roomed with him_," nodded Rainuv confidently, "_At college!_"... Ah, _bos amic! bos amic!_ Rainuv is a king to you.... Three centuries from now (you dead and messy) men whispering insolently (Eeni meeni mini mo...) will boast that their great-grand-uncles Were kicked by me in passing.... _Margaret Widdemer_ (Clutching a non-existent portière with one hand.) THE SIGHING TREE The folk of the wood called me-- "There sits a golden bird Upon your mother's pear-tree--" But I never said a word. The Sleepy People whispered-- "The bird is singing now." But I felt not then like leaving bed Nor listening beneath the bough. But the wronged world beat my portals-- "Come out or be sore oppressed!" So I threw a stone at the grackle And my throbbing heart had rest. [Illustration] _Richard Le Gallienne_ (Advancing with a dreamy air of there still being a Yellow Book.) BALLADE OF SPRING CHICKENS Spring comes--yet where the dream that glows? There only waves upon the lea A lonely pear-bough where doth doze A bird of green, and merely he: Why weave of him our poetry? Why of a Grackle need we sing? Ah, far another fowl for me-- I seek Spring Chickens in the Spring. Though May returns, and frisking shows Her ankles through this white clad tree, Alas, old Spring's gone with the rose, Gone is all old romance and glee-- Yet still a joy remains to me-- Softly our lyric lutes unstring, Far from this Grackle we shall flee And seek Spring Chickens in the Spring! Too soon Youth's _mss_ must close, (_Omar_) its rose be pot-pourri; What of this bird and all his woes! Catulla, I would fly to thee-- Bright bird of luring lingerie, Of bushy bob, of knees aswing, This golden task be mine in fee, To seek Spring Chickens in the Spring! _Envoi_ Prince, let us leave this grove, pardie, A flapper is a fairer thing: Let us fare fast where such there be, And seek Spring Chickens in the Spring! _Angela Morgan_ (Carefully lifting her Greek robe off the wet grass, and patting her fillet with one white glove, recites passionately.) OH! BIRD!