Part 10 (1/2)

FIVE little girls, of Five, Four, Three, Two, One: Rolling on the hearthrug, full of tricks and fun.

Five rosy girls, in years from Ten to Six: Sitting down to lessons-no more time for tricks.

Five growing girls, from Fifteen to Eleven: Music, Drawing, Languages, and food enough for seven!

[Picture: Now tell me which you mean]

Five winsome girls, from Twenty to Sixteen: Each young man that calls, I say ”Now tell me which you _mean_!”

Five das.h.i.+ng girls, the youngest Twenty-one: But, if n.o.body proposes, what is there to be done?

Five showy girls-but Thirty is an age When girls may be _engaging_, but they somehow don't _engage_.

Five dressy girls, of Thirty-one or more: So gracious to the shy young men they snubbed so much before!

Five _pa.s.se_ girls-Their age? Well, never mind!

We jog along together, like the rest of human kind: But the quondam ”careless bachelor” begins to think he knows The answer to that ancient problem ”how the money goes”!

POETA FIT, NON NASCITUR

[Picture: Child on old man's knee]

”How shall I be a poet?

How shall I write in rhyme?

You told me once 'the very wish Partook of the sublime.'

Then tell me how! Don't put me off With your 'another time'!”

The old man smiled to see him, To hear his sudden sally; He liked the lad to speak his mind Enthusiastically; And thought ”There's no hum-drum in him, Nor any s.h.i.+lly-shally.”

”And would you be a poet Before you've been to school?

Ah, well! I hardly thought you So absolute a fool.

First learn to be spasmodic- A very simple rule.

”For first you write a sentence, And then you chop it small; Then mix the bits, and sort them out Just as they chance to fall: The order of the phrases makes No difference at all.

”Then, if you'd be impressive, Remember what I say, That abstract qualities begin With capitals alway: The True, the Good, the Beautiful- Those are the things that pay!

”Next, when you are describing A shape, or sound, or tint; Don't state the matter plainly, But put it in a hint; And learn to look at all things With a sort of mental squint.”

”For instance, if I wished, Sir, Of mutton-pies to tell, Should I say 'dreams of fleecy flocks Pent in a wheaten cell'?”

”Why, yes,” the old man said: ”that phrase Would answer very well.

”Then fourthly, there are epithets That suit with any word- As well as Harvey's Reading Sauce With fish, or flesh, or bird- Of these, 'wild,' 'lonely,' 'weary,' 'strange,'

Are much to be preferred.”