For braggart human nature's blindness?

Or what--the worser part to view--
Of wanton waste and reckless gambling,
What darker paths shall he pursue
With sacrilegious step and shambling?
What coarse defiance, haply, hurl
At lights beyond his comprehension--
An attitudinising churl
Who struts with ludicrous pretension.

I know not--only this I know,
They're getting overstrained, my ditties,
This kind of poem ought to flow
Less like a solemn "_Nunc Dimittis_."
'Twas jaunty when I struck my lyre,
And jaunty seems this yearling baby;
But, as both year and song expire
They're sadder, each, and wiser, maybe.

* * * * *

POPULAR SONGS RE-SUNG.

"_Hi-tiddley-hi-ti; or, I'm All Right_" is heard, "all over the
place," as light sleepers and studious dwellers in quiet streets are
too well aware. Why should it not be enlisted in the service of Apollo
and Momus as well as of the Back Slum Bacchus? As thus:--

NO. V.--I-TWADDLEY-HIGH-DRY-HIGH-TONED-I! OK, I'M ALL RIGHT!