torials, etc. Like Field, the artist was finally buried in the journalist; but, unlike him, Bunner kept the work of the serious poet separate from that of the manufacturer of satiric trifles. Yet, in spite of certain exquisite fragments in Airs from Arcady (1884) and Rowen: Second Crop Songs (1892), Bunner is likely to be remembered chiefly for his flippant vers de société, his skilful and grave absurdities.

"Behold the Deeds!" is a splendid example of Bunner's wit and technical ingenuity. It is a burlesque of the old ballads in the guise of a Chant-Royal, one of the strictest and most difficult of the French forms. Another of his uncollected comic pieces ("Shake, Mulleary and Go-ethe ") owes it origin to the fact that a certain Western poet (Joaquin Miller) had composed a poem in which the name of the author of "Faust" was made to rhyme with "teeth." Bunner not only adopted this rhyme, but carried the broad satire further by mispronouncing Molière, achieving one of his happiest compositions.

Bunner's was, at best, an artificial world, a world of graceful compliments, polite evasions, rhymed billets doux, with light sighs and lighter laughter tinkling among the tea-cups. Bunner died, in New Jersey, in 1896.

SHAKE, MULLEARY AND GO-ETHE

I have a bookcase, which is what
Many much better men have not.
There are no books inside, for books,
I am afraid, might spoil its looks.
But I've three busts, all second-hand,
Upon the top. You understand
I could not put them underneath-
Shake, Mulleary and Go-ethe.

Shake was a dramatist of note;
He lived by writing things to quote.
He long ago put on his shroud;
Some of his works are rather loud.
His bald-spot's dusty, I suppose.
I know there's dust upon his nose.
I'll have to give each nose a sheath-
Shake, Mulleary and Go-ethe.

Mulleary's line was quite the same;
He has more hair, but far less fame.
I would not from that fame retrench-
But he is foreign, being French.
Yet high his haughty head he heaves,
The only one done up in leaves,
They're rather limited on wreath-
Shake, Mulleary and Go-ethe.

Go-ethe wrote in the German tongue:
He must have learned it very young.
His nose is quite a butt for scoff,
Although an inch of it is off.

He did quite nicely for the Dutch;
But here he doesn't count for much.
They all are off their native heath-
Shake, Mulleary and Go-ethe.

They sit there, on their chests, as bland
As if they were not second-hand.
I do not know of what they think,
Nor why they never frown or wink.

But why from smiling they refrain

I think I clearly can explain:

They none of them could show much teeth-
Shake, Mulleary and Go-ethe.

BEHOLD THE DEEDS!

(Being the Plaint of Adolphe Culpepper Ferguson, Salesman of Fancy Notions, held in durance of his Landlady for a “failure to connect" on Saturday night.)

I would that all men my hard case would know,
How grievously I suffer for no sin:

I, Adolphe Culpepper Ferguson, for lo!
I of my landlady am locked in

For. being short on this sad Saturday,

Nor having shekels of silver wherewith to pay:
She turned and is departed with my key;
Wherefore, not even as other boarders free,

I sing, (as prisoners to their dungeon-stones
When for ten days they expiate a spree):

Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!

One night and one day have I wept my woe;
Nor wot I, when the morrow doth begin,
If I shall have to write to Briggs & Co.,

To pray them to advance the requisite tin
For ransom of their salesman, that he may
Go forth as other boarders go alway-
As those I hear now flocking from their tea,

Led by the daughter of my landlady
Piano-ward. This day, for all my moans,
Dry-bread and water have been servèd me.
Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!

Miss Amabel Jones is musical, and so

The heart of the young he-boarder doth win, Playing "The Maiden's Prayer" adagio—

That fetcheth him, as fetcheth the "bunko skin" The innocent rustic. For my part, I pray That Badarjewska maid may wait for aye Ere sits she with a lover, as did we Once sit together, Amabel! Can it be

That all that arduous wooing not atones For Saturday's shortness of trade dollars three? Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!

Yea! She forgets the arm that was wont to go Around her waist. She wears a buckle whose pin Galleth the crook of her young man's elbow.

I forget not, for I that youth have been! Smith was aforetime the Lothario gay. Yet once, I mind me, Smith was forced to stay Close in his room. Not calm as I was he; But his noise brought no pleasaunce, verily. Small ease he got of playing on the bones Or hammering on the stove-pipe, that I see. Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!

Thou, for whose fear the figurative crow

I eat, accursed be thou and all thy kin!
Thee I will show up-yea, up I will show

Thy too-thick buckwheats and thy tea too thin.
Ay! here I dare thee, ready for the fray:
Thou dost not "keep a first-class house " I say!
It does not with the advertisements agree.
Thou lodgest a Briton with a puggaree,

And thou hast harbored Jacobses and Cohns,
Also a Mulligan. Thus denounce I thee!
Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!

Envoy

Boarders! the worst I have not told to ye:
She hath stolen my trousers, that I may not flee
Privily by the window. Hence these groans.
There is no fleeing in a robe de nuit.

Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!

A PITCHER OF MIGNONETTE 1

A pitcher of mignonette

In a tenement's highest casement,—

Queer sort of flower-pot-yet

That pitcher of mignonette

Is a garden in heaven set,

To the little sick child in the basement

The pitcher of mignonette,

In a tenement's highest casement.

1 Reprinted, by permission, from Poems by H. C. Bunner. Copyright, 1899, by Charles Scribner's Sons.