What is sauce for the goose, for the gander Is sauce, ye inconsequent fair! It is better to laugh than to maunder, And better is mirth than despair; And though Life’s not all beer and all skittles, Yet the Sun, on occasion, can shine, And, _mon Dieu_! he’s a fool who belittles This cosmos of Thine! There are cakes, there is ale—ay, and ginger Shall be hot in the mouth, as of old: And a villain, with cloak and with whinger, And a hero, in armour of gold, And a maid with a face like a lily, With a heart that is stainless and gay, Make a tale worth a world of the silly Sad trash of to-day! _Rhyme of Rhymes_. WILD on the mountain peak the wind Repeats its old refrain, Like ghosts of mortals who have sinned, And fain would sin again. For “wind” I do not rhyme to “mind,” Like many mortal men, “Again” (when one reflects) ’twere kind To rhyme as if “agen.” I never met a single soul Who _spoke_ of “wind” as “wined,” And yet we use it, on the whole, To rhyme to “find” and “blind.” We _say_, “Now don’t do that _agen_,” When people give us pain; In poetry, nine times in ten, It rhymes to “Spain” or “Dane.” Oh, which are wrong or which are right? Oh, which are right or wrong? The sounds in prose familiar, quite, Or those we meet in song? To hold that “love” can rhyme to “prove” Requires some force of will, Yet in the ancient lyric groove We meet them rhyming still. This was our learned fathers’ wont In prehistoric times, We follow it, or if we don’t, We oft run short of rhymes. _Rhyme of Oxford Cockney Rhymes_. (Exhibited in the _Oxford Magazine_.) THOUGH Keats rhymed “ear” to “Cytherea,” And Morris “dawn” to “morn,” A worse example, it is clear, By Oxford Dons is “shorn.” G—y, of Magdalen, goes beyond These puny Cockneys far, And to “Magrath” rhymes—Muse despond!— “Magrath” he rhymes to “star”! Another poet, X. Y. Z., Employs the word “researcher,” And then,—his blood be on his head,— He makes it rhyme to “nurture.” Ah, never was the English tongue So flayed, and racked, and tortured, Since one I love (who should be hung) Made “tortured” rhyme to “orchard.” Unkindly G—y’s raging pen Next craves a rhyme to “sooner;” Rejecting “Spooner,” (best of men,) He fastens on _lacuna_(_r_). Nay, worse, in his infatuate mind He ends a line “explainer,” Nor any rhyme can G—y find Until he reaches Jena(r). Yes, G—y shines the worst of all, He needs to rhyme “embargo;” The man had “Margot” at his call, He had the good ship _Argo_; Largo he had; yet doth he seek Further, and no embargo Restrains him from the odious, weak, And Cockney rhyme, “Chicago”!