And saying mine, I do not mean There are not many others seen Who ride like me on my machine, My Bicycle. I’m not stuck up, tho’ seated high; To ride, at once, and run and fly―― My pride is so to travel by My Bicycle. Who will my head with learning stow, I work the light, ped-antic toe, ’Tis cyclopedic lore to know My Bicycle. And when the saddled arc I span, What care I for the fall of man Let him remount! I always can My Bicycle. All the mutations I discern Of men and States not me concern, While I avoid to overturn My Bicycle. See Russia rotten, Turkey eat―― And John Bull in a stewing heat; We have a better kind of meet, My Bicycle! Then hurry spokes and spokesman too, We only have an hour or so, And almost twenty miles to go. My Bicycle. _Lyra Bicyclica_, By J. G. DALTON, (E. C. Hodges & Co.) Boston, 1885. ――――:o:―――― MY CHIGNON. What was it all my fears did quell, When down six flights of stairs I fell, Preserved my cranium so well? My Chignon! What is it, when some young knight pries Out of his blue orbs corner-wise, That tilts my hat down o’er my eyes? My Chignon! What is it so exceeding kind, When I walk through the rain and wind, On some stray twig will stay behind To form a nest for feathered kind? My Chignon! _Girl of the Period Miscellany_, August, 1869. ――――:o:―――― MY DENTIST. In childhood who my first array Of teeth pluck’d tenderly away, For teeth, like dogs, have each their day? My Dentist. Who, when my first had run their race, And others had usurp’d their place, When overcrowded gave them space? My Dentist. Whether the cavities were slight, Or vast and deep, who stopp’d them tight, Then made their polish’d surface white? My Dentist. When void of bone a gap was seen, Who fix’d, the vacancy to screen, An artificial one between? My Dentist. Who, when ambitious to be first My horse fell headlong in the burst, Replaced the ivories dispersed? My Dentist. Who “Baily” left on parlour chair With leaf turn’d down to show me where Jack Russell’s life was pictured there? My Dentist. Or reading in that doleful cell Whyte-Melville’s verse, who knew full well Its charm would every pang dispel? My Dentist.