IN PRAISE OF THE TRIANGLE.

Ye countless stars, both great and small, The poetic sky who spangle, Not one of you, that I recall, Has hymned the sweet triangle! With lyre and lute too long, too much, Ye've thrid love's mazy tangle, Yet unresponsive to your touch Have left the sweet triangle. And so the Muse commissions me A lay to newly fangle— I play the instrument, you see— In praise of my triangle. No tambourine, no minstrel bones Give forth what Hilda Wangel Would call such "frightfully thrilling" tones As those of my triangle. No self-respecting band may try To play—'twould simply mangle— Good music, unassisted by The silver-tongued triangle. In vain does Strephon with a lute Round Phyllis always dangle; She'd have him, if he urged his suit With passionate triangle. Full brave may bray the loud trombone, Full sweet the cymbals jangle, The bagpipes till they burst may drone, So I have my triangle. The stately cold piano may All depth of feeling strangle; To rouse deep feeling I essay, Nor fail, on my triangle! O'er rival claims of violin And 'cello some may wrangle— For pure expression nothing's in The hunt with my triangle. The diamond bracelet must exceed In worth the silver bangle— No instrument, string, wind, or reed, Compares with my triangle!

Griffin, who benignly beamest (So to speak) upon the Strand, To the rustic eye thou seemest Quite superlatively grand. Griffin, grim and grimy Griffin, Few, Joe tells me, will agree With my artless numbers, if in Undiluted praise of thee. Critics, so he says, by dozens Swear thou couldst not well be worse, Yet from one poor country cousin's Pen accept a tribute verse. Some of London's statues now are Fêted richly once a year; Some—it seems a shame, I vow—are Fated to oblivion there. Once a year a primrose bower Draws the folks around for miles, Dizzy blossoms into flower, Almost into "wreathèd smiles." Once a year by all the town o'er- -whelmed in bays is Gordon seen, Countless wreaths recording "Brown (or Jones) thus keeps thy memory green." Once a year King Charles's statue Paragraphs jocose invites, Wreathed with flowers by infatu- -ated modern Jacobites. Thus their substance people waste on This queer decorative fit— Wreaths are sometimes even placed on Mere nonentities like Pitt. But—I cannot think what Joe meant—! No one—so he said to me— In his most expansive moment E'er has twined a wreath for thee! So I cast—in no derision— From my 'bus-top garden-seat These few violets, with precision, At what I must call thy feet. 'Tis not that thy mien is stately, 'Tis not that thy grace is rare, 'Tis not that I care so greatly For thy quaint heraldic air; But contemptuous men neglect thee, Load thee with invective strange, So with violets I have decked thee, And with verses, as a change.