A Garden of gardens it teaches The bard, ever blatant, to bless The pumpkins, the plums, and the peaches, The salads not easy to dress;―― Pears, pumpkins, and pulpiest peaches, Camelia, cabbage, and cress, The pumpkins, the pippins, the peaches Cut cabbage, and crisply curled cress! Oh, of luscious luxurious lunches, The poet loves _one_ lunch, and that’s Of bananas in bountiful bunches, And melons as big as your hats, Black currants, bananas in bunches, And cocoa nuts, mothers of mats―― For of science if you are a lover You’ll know they’re the mothers of mats, That the cocoa nut’s cortical cover Machinery makes into mats, Into fuscous and fibre-fringed mats. _Fun_, July 20, 1867. ――――:o:―――― HYGIEA. (A sanitary Lyric, imitated from Edgar Poe’s “Ligiea,” and dedicated by Mr. Punch to Dr. Richardson.) Hygiea! Hygiea! Most exigent one! I have an idea Thou pokest thy fun. Oh! is it thy will To make noodles of us, By urging us still So to worry and fuss Concerning our bodies, What’s eaten, what’s drunk, Until we’re mere noddies In chronic blue funk? Hygiea, thou’rt clever; But, ’twixt you and me, To fidget for ever Is fiddle-de-dee. We mustn’t eat this, And we mustn’t drink that, Lest sound health we should miss, Grow too thin or too fat, Must go in for analysis Of all “grub” about Lest we court cramp, paralysis, Fever, or gout; Mustn’t travel by rail, Must shun riding in cabs; Must,――but time would quite fail To tell half of thy “fads.” If a mortal (I think) _Could_ such vigilance keep, He would ne’er eat or drink, He would ne’er toil or sleep. _Sanitas sanitatum_ Is all very fine; But my _ultimatum_ Is this――I must dine! And if I stop grubbing Till all’s fair and clear, I shall do nought but “tubbing” For many a year. Esculapius’ daughter, With thee I agree, Pure air and cold water, Are needful to me; But perpetual worry ’Bout stomachs and nerves, And this, that, and ’tother, No good purpose serves. “Nine Systems,” Hygiea, Perhaps I possess, Though I’d an idea The number was less. But to square work and feast By the rules thou art giving, Would take nine lives at least, And not one much worth living. _Punch_, October 23, 1880. ――――:o:―――― A NEW POEM SAID TO BE BY POE. TO THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY GRAPHIC.