_The Mothers._ O daughters! make your markets while you can, For bloom soon groweth like the water wan; The early bird picks up the marrying man. _The Maidens._ Perhaps, O lovers, if we did our hair _A la_ Medea, and if our garments were Draped classically, we should seem more fair. _The Youths._ By doing this ye would not us befool; Medea! the idea makes our blood run cool, Besides of classics we’d enough at school. _The Boys._ Come, I say, now, the girls can darn, and hem, And cook a chop, and clean a meerschaum-stem; Our sisters take, we are so tired of them. _The Maidens._ Perhaps if ruffs around our necks were tied, Or you with idiotic stare we eyed All angles, with our heads upon one side, In short, the middle age style―― _The Widows._ Suitors! stay, We are less far from middle age than they. _The Youths._ Maidens, we then to you would make our way. _The Maidens_, Cross ye the water wan, then,―― _Mr. Swinburne._ I demur To “water wan,” it comes too often, sir; Write next, as I should, rhyming, “wan water,” _The Maidens._ Lovers, we pray you, gaining our consents, Let us, too, have _our_ mediæval bents, Give us, for cricket-matches, tournaments. _The Widowers._ We are stout, nor will uncomfortably truss Our arms and legs, like fowls; no jousts for us, In armour we should look ridiculous. _The Fathers._ Of money, tournaments would cost a heap: Humour your sweethearts, sons, with something cheap But look to settlements before you leap. _The Youths._ O maidens! we in verse will call you queens, And publicly extol your minds and miens, Sending our poems to the magazines. _The Maidens._ Sith of Life’s arches bloom hath shortest span, We will give up our mediæval man, And meet you half way in the water wan. _The Editors._ Alas! the maidens have removed their ban, We, vex’d with verses vile, e’en when they scan, Shall very soon be as the water wan. ANONYMOUS. _Once a Week._ February 20, 1869. ―――― THE MONTHLY PARODIES. AN APOLOGY. _After William Morris’s “Earthly Paradise.”_ Of Love or War this is no hour to sing, But I may ease the burden of your fears (Lest you think death to mirth is happening), And quote from wit of past and present years, Till o’er these pages you forget your tears, And smile again, as presently you say Some idle jingle――or forgotten lay.