And many and many a year flew by In that World they call the New, While marvels divine were wrought at the shrine Of the blessed St. Rose of Peru. (I should beat my breast and be much distress’d If you call’d this part untrue.) But my teeth never ache but I think, as I wake, Of the blessed St. Rose of Peru; And my corns never shoot, but the woes I compute Of the blessed St. Rose of Peru; And so I decide my pangs to abide Like her who suffer’d――and braved――and died In the capital of Peru, The region they call Peru. _Lays of the Saintly._ By Walter Parke (Vizetelly and Co.), London, 1882. ―――――――― BEAUTIFUL B. It was many and many a year ago, By a theatre known as P. That a little boy stood, whom now we know By the name of Wilson B. Whose soul was filled with no other thought Than to act the Prince of D. He _was_ a boy, and still like a boy, In that theatre known as P., He plays in a play, that is not mere play, And as Hamlet Prince of D., With many a clutch at his manly breast, And a smile that is sweet to see. For this is the reason some time ago, At his theatre known as P., In “Lights of London” and “Romany Rye,” And the “Silver King” did he Lead up to the higher “Claudian” rôle Of poetic tragedee, Till he’d raised the taste of that theatre To Hamlet, Prince of D. For Irving, o’er sated with London’s praise Went once more across the sea. Yes! that was the reason, as all men know, And not the mere L. S. D. That the Lyceum company, touring, had left The coast clear for Wilson B. But his rôle was more youthful by far than the rôle Of actors more thrilling than he Of parties intenser than he; And neither the posing, nor withering smile, Of a smothered agonee, Can ever confuse his rôle with the rôle Of the actor now over the sea. The play never plays, without crowding the ways To that theatre we’ve named P. And the lamps are not lit, ’ere the crowd at the pit Are waiting for Wilson B. And all the night long he is there with his stride Of his youth, his beauty, in lime-light’s pride In the theatre there you still may see Beautiful B. as Prince of D. J. W. G. W., November, 1884. (Written expressly for this collection, during the run of _Hamlet_ at the Princess’s Theatre, London, with Mr. Wilson Barrett as the Prince of Denmark. Mr. Henry Irving, who had recently been performing the same part at the Lyceum, being then on tour in the United States.) ―――――――― ANNABEL LEE. ’Twas more than a million years ago, Or so, it seems to me, That I used to prance around and beau The beautiful Annabel Lee. There were other girls in the neighbourhood But none was a patch to she.