Volume 156 — BALLADE OF APPROACHING BALDNESS.
Reading edition
I'm back in civil life, all brawn and chest, Lungs made of leather, heart as right as rain; I still could dine off bully-beef with zest; I've never had a scratch or stitch or sprain; Life seems to throb in every single vein. Yet I'm a whited sepulchre, in brief; I've one foot in the grave, I'm on the wane, I'm heading for the sere and yellow leaf. From Mons to Jericho I've borne my crest And back from Jericho to Mons again; I've sampled smells in Araby the Blest Would burst a boiler or corrode a drain; The Blankshires have a port that raises Cain— I've messed with them and never come to grief; And yet I'm dashing like a non-stop train Full steam into the sere and yellow leaf. It caught me hard this morning when I dressed And read the mirror's verdict. Ah, the pain Is gnawing like a canker at my breast, Is beating like a hammer in my brain; I must speak out or break beneath the strain. I'm going bald on top. O cruel reef Where youthful hopes lie wrecked! O dismal lane Whose end is but the sere and yellow leaf! ENVOI. Prince (Mr. Punch)! on Armageddon's plain My love-locks fell a prey to Time, the thief. Regrets are useless, unguents are in vain; Only remains the sere and yellow leaf.
The Commercial Touch.
"Presiding at the concert given in connection with the —— Art Club's annual exhibition of oil and water-colours, Mr. —— congratulated the club on the quality of its paintings, which, he thought, were remarkably cheap when cognisance was taken of the present high prices of materials."—Provincial Paper.
This critic has, as the Art jargon puts it, "a nice feeling for values."
"HOW I DIFFER FROM MY MOTHER."
By A Modern Woman.
'Women differ by the width of Heaven from what their mothers were.'—MR. JUSTICE DARLING.
"I do not smoke and I do not wear bare-back dresses, but I agree with Mr. Justice Darling—there is the width of Heaven between my mother and I."—Evening News.
Let's hope so, in the matter of grammar.