MORTIMER COLLINS.

If life were never bitter, And love were always sweet, Then who would care to borrow A moral from to-morrow— If Thames would always glitter, And joy would ne'er retreat, If life were never bitter, And love were always sweet? If Care were not the waiter Behind a fellow's chair, When easy-going sinners Sit down to Richmond dinners, And life's swift stream flows straighter— By Jove, it would be rare If Care were not the waiter Behind a fellow's chair. If wit were always radiant, And wine were always iced, And bores were kicked out straightway Through a convenient gateway; Then down the years' long gradient 'Twere sad to be enticed; If wit were always radiant, And wine were always iced.

O cool in the summer is salad, And warm in the winter is love; And a poet shall sing you a ballad Delicious thereon and thereof. A singer am I, if no sinner, My Muse has a marvellous wing, And I willingly worship at dinner The Sirens of Spring. Take endive... like love it is bitter; Take beet... for like love it is red; Crisp leaf of the lettuce shall glitter, And cress from the rivulet's bed; Anchovies foam-born, like the Lady Whose beauty has maddened this bard; And olives, from groves that are shady; And eggs—boil 'em hard.

Waitress, with eyes so marvellous black, And the blackest possible lustrous gay tress, This is the month of the Zodiac When I want a pretty deft-handed waitress. Bring a china-bowl, you merry young soul; Bring anything green, from worsted to celery; Bring pure olive-oil, from Italy's soil... Then your china-bowl we'll well array. When the time arrives chip choicest chives, And administer quietly chili and capsicum... (Young girls do not quite know what 's what Till as a Poet into their laps I come). Then a lobster fresh as fresh can be (When it screams in the pot I feel a murderer); After which I fancy we Shall want a few bottles of Heidsieck or Roederer.

King Arthur, growing very tired indeed Of wild Tintagel, now that Lancelot Had gone to Jersey or to Jericho, And there was nobody to make a rhyme, And Cornish girls were christened Jennifer, And the Round Table had grown rickety, Said unto Merlin (who had been asleep For a few centuries in Broceliande, But woke, and had a bath, and felt refreshed): 'What shall I do to pull myself together?' Quoth Merlin, 'Salad is the very thing, And you can get it at the "Cheshire Cheese."' King Arthur went there: verily, I believe That he has dined there every day since then. Have you not marked the portly gentleman In his cool corner, with his plate of greens? The great knight Lancelot prefers the 'Cock,' Where port is excellent (in pints), and waiters Are portlier than kings, and steaks are tender, And poets have been known to meditate... Ox-fed orating ominous octastichs.