--The Hotch-kiss.
* * * * *
A PANTOMIMIC REVERIE.
(_BY A "SLIPPERED PANTALOON."_)
[Illustration]
Tax-gatherers molest one's door,
The streets are choked with messy mist;
I'm the proverbial Bachelor,
An old, prosaic Pessimist.
Yet somehow--who can tell me why?--
Urged by the Past's dim Phantom, I'm
Disposed my cosy Club to fly,
And prank it at the Pantomime.
A Phantom weird of things forgot!
My mother, proud of me at her
Sweet side--our yellow chariot--
The long, long drive--the theatre--
My fear to miss--my thrill when in--
The Fairy Queen, the jolly King--
The laughter flung at Harlequin,
And Pantaloon arollicking.
And sister PRUE, and brother TIM,
(I scarcely recollected them),
Magnificent in gala trim:
Dear me, how I respected them!
I deemed them quite grown up, so bold
Seemed they, glared so defiantly:
Yet they, too, cowered to behold
Prone before JACK the Giant lie.
Yes! Where is TIM, where PRUE, alack!
Where mother fondly pliant now?
Where for that matter too is JACK,
And where the grisly Giant now?
In lonely stall, with vacant brow
I sit and eye the _coryphees_:
In my time they were Fairies; now
They seem to me but sorry fays.
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