I take the artist by the throat And pin him to the wall, And jerk his chin and tear his coat, And hold his head in thrall. I bid the trembling victim smile, I cry, “Be gay and laugh, And in the very latest style _I’ll_ take _your_ photograph!” I twisted till I broke his neck, I baked him in the sun; I left the room an awful wreck, And then the deed was done. They held an inquest on the bits; Ye photographing crew, Before to you the writer sits Just read that inquest through. In Gay Japan. BY SIR EDWIN ARNOLD. Mr. Lawson, if you please, Just a little line to say I’m a-taking of my ease In a Japaneasy way. Here I write “By Lands and Seas” For your “London Day by Day,” ’Neath the blossom-laden trees Of Japan, the glad and gay. Here I watch the pretty shes As they don their night array; And they ask me to their teas, And they sing to me and play. ’Tis ’mid pleasures such as these That I hope you’ll let me stay-- ’Tis a climate that agrees With your faithful Edwin A. Now no more I have to seize Editorial pen to flay Home Rule freaks of Mr. G.’s Or to keep the Rads at bay. Mona’s “Marriage,” Lubbock’s bees, Mr. Stanley, Tottie Fay, Water rates, and School Board fees On my mind no longer prey. Glad Japan my spirit frees From its tenement of clay, And, my note-book on my knees, With the muses I can stray. So, dear Lawson, if you please, I will stop here if I may, Sending “Over Lands and Seas” From Japan, the glad and gay. The Balaclava Heroes. (JULY 2, 1890.) Open the workhouse doors to-day To the men who fought in that fearful fray; Weary and worn and scant of breath Are the men who rode through the valley of Death; But, clad in the pauper’s garb of shame, They are getting the meed of their deathless fame. These are the heroes our poet sang When over the world their story rang; These are the heroes, gnarled and bent, With the tale of whose deeds the skies were rent; These are the soldiers whose fame’s writ large On the glorious page of that deathless charge. Open the workhouse doors to-day To the penniless heroes old and gray; In each wrinkled face is a soldier’s pride, They have won the guerdon so long denied, And we honour their deed with--what do you think?-- _A benefit at a skating rink_! A Child’s Idea. Lightly holding her mother’s hand, A little girl tripped o’er her father’s land; Squire of all the acres he, As far as the little one’s eyes could see, And his wife and his daughter, his “Baby May,” Were “seeing the folks” this Christmas Day.