Yes, I’m like a dotless i, And want and woe my wretched cry, With stress of sad starvation, Ah, me! it is a world of poor. There’s not a little cur that barks, Nor tiny birds, from wrens to larks, Nor even skulking sheriff’s sharks, Feel so sad, so sick and sore, As I, most wretched, dotless I, Doom’d for ever to be poor, And dunn’d by tradesmen Evermore. 4. Even while I thus was thinking, All my soul within me sinking, Fathoms deep in dark despair, A knock I heard at my front door, Which set my heart most wildly beating, And my blood to fever heating, As, coward-like, I kept retreating, Retreating to the basement floor, There I whisper’d to the slavey, Aged, I fancy, twenty-four, “Say I’ve left for――Evermore.” 5. For my nerves received a shock, I felt I knew that beastly knock, The knock of man who takes possession;―― And it went to my heart’s core To lose my little household gods, My wear, my gear, and fishing-rods, All, all my sacred ends and odds, That cost at least of pounds a score,―― All to go at one fell swoop, With tearful eyes I glanced them o’er, And sadly murmur’d,――“Nevermore.” 6. Yes, it was the sheriffs man; Like all his ugly kith and clan―― The seedy, dirty, beery lot, Blood-shot eyes and red and sore. Then this vile and venomous vulture, Devoid of every civil culture, And meanly meaning to insult yer, Spits upon your carpet floor, Lights his foul, ill-smelling pipe,―― Stuft’d with plug of negro core,―― Sits and spits for――Evermore. 7. “Wretch!” I cry, with sudden start “From this second let us part, Get thee gone, possessing devil, Let me never see thee more.” My voice I raise as thus I cry, And anger gleams within my eye; Then the demon made reply,―― “’Tis only thirty pounds, not more, So, sir, ’tis you, not I, must ‘part,’ If not, why then”――here he swore―― “I shall stay here――Evermore.” 8. And that vulture, never soaring, Still is sitting, still is snoring, On my best Morocco chair, That I shall sit on now no more; And his visage is denoting, As my furniture he’s noting, A grim and ghastly gloating, As he gloats my sadness o’er; And my dreams by that vile vulture, Who my sadness does ignore, Will be nightmared――Evermore. SOMERS BELLAMY. _Under the Clock._ March, 21, 1885. ―――――――― A WELCOME TO BATTENBERG. Shortly after it was publicly announced that the Queen had given her consent to the marriage of the Princess Beatrice with Prince Henry of Battenberg, the following paragraph appeared in _Funny Folks_: