_Rossetti, who took six cups of it._ The lilies lie in my lady’s bower, (O weary mother, drive the cows to roost) They faintly droop for a little hour; My lady’s head droops like a flower. She took the porcelain in her hand, (O weary mother, drive the cows to roost), She poured; I drank at her command, Drank deep, and now――you understand! (O weary mother, drive the cows to roost). _Burns, who liked it adulterated._ Weel, gin ye speir, I’m no inclined, Whusky or tay――to state my mind Fore ane or ither; For, gin I tak the first, I’m fou, And gin the next, I’m dull as you, Mix a’ thegither. _Walt Whitman, who didn’t stay more than a minute._ One cup for my self-hood, Many for you. Allons, camerados, we will drink together O hand-in-hand! That tea-spoon, please, when you’ve done with it. What butter-colour’d hair you’ve got; I don’t want to be personal. All-right, then, you needn’t. You’re a stale-cadaver. Eighteen-pence if the bottles are returned. Allons, from all bat-eyed formules. B. E. O. P. ―――― PETER BELL. PETER BELL: A Lyrical Ballad. London. Printed for Taylor & Hessey, 93, Fleet Street. 1819. Such is the title of an amusing parody, contained in a small pamphlet of 29 pages, with Preface, Poem, and Foot-notes, all in ridicule of the vanity and egotism of the author of the real original “_Peter Bell_.” The Preface states:―― “It is now a period of one-and-twenty years since I first wrote some of the most perfect compositions that ever dropped from poetical pen. My heart hath been right and powerful all its years. I never thought an evil or a weak thought in my life. It has been my aim and my achievement to deduce moral thunder from buttercups, daisies, celandines, and (as a poet scarcely inferior to myself, hath it) ‘such small deer.’ Accustomed to mountain solitudes, I can look with a calm and dispassionate eye upon that fiend-like, vulture-souled, adder-fanged critic, whom I have not patience to name, and of whose Review I loathe the title, and detest the contents. Philosophy has taught me to forgive the misguided miscreant, and to speak of him only in terms of patience and pity. My ballads are the noblest pieces of verse in the whole range of English poetry: and I take this opportunity of telling the world I am a great man. Milton was also a great man. Ossian was a blind old fool. Copies of my previous works may be had in any numbers, by application at my publisher. Of _Peter Bell_ I have only thus much to say: it completes the simple system of natural narrative which I began so early as 1798.