The chamber walls are cracked and bare;―― _Margérie!_ Without the gossips stood astare At men her bed away that bare;―― _C’est ça Sainte Margérie!_ Five pennies lay her hand within,―― _Margérie!_ So she her fair soul’s weal might win, Little she recked of dule or teen;―― _C’est ça Sainte Margérie!_ Dank straw from dunghill gathered, _Margérie!_ Where fragrant swine have made their bed, Thereon her body shall be laid;―― _C’est ça Sainte Margérie!_ Three pennies to the poor in dole,―― _Margérie!_ One to the clerk her knell shall toll, And one to masses for her soul;―― _C’est ça Sainte Margérie!_ From _Poems and Parodies_. By Two Undergrads. Oxford. B. H. Blackwell, 1880. (This little paper-covered pamphlet was originally published at the price of one shilling; it was withdrawn from circulation, and is consequently very scarce.) ―――― SITTING UP ALL NIGHT WITH A LILY. Oh, fulsome the joy of the fading light! _Oh, fainting of lilies with broken stem!_ When you feel too utterly almost quite, _The sunflowers love, yet love not them_! Oh, weird is the feeling of thoughtsome doubt When candles, and lamps, and gas are out, And burglarious Philistines prowl about, _Chill is the air at four a.m._! Oh, mystic the eyelids all drowsy grown! _Oh, fainting of lilies with broken stem!_ Oh, twitching of limbs that are scarce your own, _The sunflowers love, yet love not them_! Oh, baleful blessing, the wistful wist Of matters that have not, nor can exist! Oh, say, have you noticed the gladsome list? _Chill is the air at four a.m.!_ You think of your bed with remorseful tears, _Oh, fainting of lilies with broken stem_! While sounds of the silence attack your ears, _The sunflowers love, yet love not them_! Oh, mythic deeds by the sightless seen! Oh, lovely past of the has not been! Oh, what in the world do I chance to mean? _Chill is the air at four a.m.!_ _Fun’s Academy Skits_. 1882. ―――― AN UTTER PASSION UTTERED UTTERLY. Meseem’d that Love, with swifter feet than fire, Brought me my Lady crown’d with amorous burs, And drapen in tear-collar’d minivers, Sloped saltire wise in token of desire; My heart she soak’d in tears, and on a pyre Laid, for Love’s sake, in folds of fragrant perse, The while her face, more fair than sunflowers, She gave mine eyes for pasture most entire. Sicklike she seem’d, as with wan-carven smiles Some deal she moved anear, and thereunto Thrice paler wox, and weaker than blown sand Upon the passioning ocean’s beached miles; And as her motion’s music nearer drew My starved lips play’d the vampyre with her hand. JOHN TODHUNTER.