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.
THE NEW DISCOVERY.--"Argon" is described as "a gaseous constituent." In most constituencies can be found plenty of "Argons."
[Illustration: HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF; OR, THE MODERN ORACLE OF AMMON.
"The people (the Libyans) deeming themselves not Egyptians, and being discontented with the institutions, sent to the Oracle of Ammon, saying that they had no relation to the Egyptians. The god, however, said, 'that all the country which the Nile irrigated was Egypt.'"--_Herodotus_, II., 15. B.C. 452.
"I stated that, in consequence of these claims of ours and the claims of Egypt in the Nile Valley, the British sphere of influence covered the whole of the Nile waterway."--_Sir E. Grey in House of Commons_, A.D. 1895.
_John Bull._ "YOU SEE, NILUS, THE FATHER OF HISTORY AND I ARE OF THE SAME WAY OF THINKING. SO YOU'RE ALL RIGHT, MY BOY, WHILE I'M HERE!"]
_Nilus_ (_referring to Parisian Press_). But--won't it make our French friends furious?
_Nilus._ Are you, then, the new Oracle of Ammon?
_Mr. Bull._ Well, ALEXANDER claimed the god his sire. So why not I?
_Nilus._ I own I rather tire Of all these squabbles. Peace is what I want. Oh why did your intrusive SPEKE and GRANT* Disturb my forty centuries of quiet? Since then it's been all rumpus, and red riot.
_Mr. Bull._ How about RAMESES, old cockalorum?
_Nilus._ Oh! better all the Pharoahs in full quorum Than Condominiums. The Control called Dual----
_Mr. Bull._ Oh, don't you bother! _That_ has got its gruel.
_Nilus._ But these Exploring Expeditions?
_Mr. Bull._ Bogey! Young GREY should reassure you, my old fogey. His words don't speak scuttle or shilly-shally "My 'sphere of influence' covers the Nile Valley." Isn't that plain enough? God Ammon's nod Was hardly more decisive. It is odd How very like the Oracle's straight tip Was to Sir EDWARD'S. A stiff upper lip Saves lots of talk. "Explorers" will prove skittish But the whole Nile's Egyptian (and thus British). Just as HERODOTUS tells us Ammon said. Sir EDWARD, my dear Nile, has an old head Upon young shoulders; courteous as a GRANVILLE, He comes down like a hammer on an anvil-- Or Ammon on the Libyans--when 'tis needful. Of rumoured expeditions he is heedful But not afraid. Effective occupation? Why that's a ticklish point--for many a nation. But why define it? EDWARD has a shorter way; He claims for me the whole of your long waterway, And plainly says intrusion would be viewed As--well, "unfriendly." Should the FRANK intrude----