And this shows that the prince of the ocean, To ladies forbearing and mild, Though his record be dark, is the man-eating shark Who will eat neither woman nor child. [Footnote 2: From "Nautical Lays of a Landsman," by Wallace Irwin. Copyright, 1904, by Dodd, Mead & Co.] THE PLAINT OF JONAH BY ROBERT J. BURDETTE Why should I live, when every day The wicked prospers in his way, And daily adds unto his hoard, While cutworms smite the good man's gourd? When I would rest beneath its shade Comes the shrill-voiced book-selling maid, And smites me with her tireless breath-- Then am I angry unto death. When I would slumber in my booth, Who comes with accents loud and smooth, And talks from dawn to midnight late? The honest labor candidate. Who pounds mine ear with noisy talk, Whose brazen gall no ire can balk And wearies me of life's short span? The accident insurance man. And when, all other torments flown, I think to call one hour mine own, Who takes my leisure by the throat? The villain taking up a vote. A DOS'T O' BLUES BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY I' got no patience with blues at all! And I ust to kindo talk Aginst 'em, and claim, 'tel along last Fall, They was none in the fambly stock; But a nephew of mine, from Eelinoy, That visited us last year, He kindo convinct me differunt While he was a-stayin' here. Frum ever'-which way that blues is from, They'd tackle him ever' ways; They'd come to him in the night, and come On Sundays, and rainy days; They'd tackle him in corn-plantin' time, And in harvest, and airly Fall, But a dose't of blues in the wintertime, He 'lowed, was the worst of all! Said all diseases that ever he had-- The mumps, er the rheumatiz-- Er ever'-other-day-aigger's bad Purt' nigh as anything is!-- Er a cyarbuncle, say, on the back of his neck, Er a felon on his thumb,-- But you keep the blues away from him, And all o' the rest could come! And he'd moan, "They's nary a leaf below! Ner a spear o' grass in sight! And the whole wood-pile's clean under snow! And the days is dark as night! You can't go out--ner you can't stay in-- Lay down--stand up--ner set!" And a tetch o' regular tyfoid-blues Would double him jest clean shet! I writ his parents a postal-kyard, He could stay 'tel Spring-time come; And Aprile first, as I rickollect, Was the day we shipped him home! Most o' his relatives, sence then, Has either give up, er quit, Er jest died off; but I understand He's the same old color yit! MORRIS AND THE HONORABLE TIM[3] BY MYRA KELLY