IMPROVING HER POETRY.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2493, 17 March 1881, Page 4

IMPROVING HER POETRY.

“If you please, sir,” said the young lady timidly, as the exchange editor handed her a chair, “ I have composed a few verses, or .partially composed them, and I thought you might help me to finish them, and then print them. Ma says they are real nice so far as they go, and Pa takes the “ Eagle ” every day.” She was a handsome creature, with beautiful blue eyes, and an expectant look on her face, a hopefulness that appealed to the holiest emotions, and the exchange editor made up his mind not to crush the longing of that pure heart if he never wrote another line. “May I show you the poetry ?” continued the ripe, red mouth. “ You will see that I couldn’t get the lines of the verses, and if you’d be so kind as to help me ” Help her! Though he had never even read a line of poetry, the exchange editor felt the spirit of the divine heart flood his soul as he yielded to the bewildering music. “ The first verse runs like this,” she went on, taking courage from his eyes:— “ ‘ How softly sweet the autumn air The dying woodland fills ; And Nature turns from restful care —’ ”

“ ‘ To antibilious pills,’ ” added the exchange editor with a jerk. “ Just the thing. It rhymes, and it’s so. You take anybody now. Half the people you meet are ” “ I suppose you know best,” interrupted the young girl. “I hadn’t thought of it in that way, but you have a better idea of such things. Now the second verse is more like this “ The dove-eyed kina upon the moor Look tender, meek, and sad ; While from the valley comes the roar—” “ f Of the matchless liver-pad !’ ” roared the exchange editor. “ There you get it. That finishes the second so as to match the first. It combines the fashions with poetry, and carries the idea home to the fireside. If I had only your ability in starting a verse, with ray genius in winding it up, I’d quit the shears and ooen in the poetry business to-morrow.” “ Think so ?” asked the fair lady. “It don’t strike me as keeping up the theme.” “ You don’t want to. You want to break the theme here and there. The reader likes it better. Oh, yes! Where you keep up the theme it gets monotonous.” “ Perhaps that’s so,” rejoined the beauty, brightening up. “ I didn’t think of that. Now I’ll read the third verse :

“ How sadly droops the dying day, As night springs from the glen, And moaning twilight seems to say—” “ ‘ The old man’s drunk again,’ wouldn’t do, would it ?’ ” asked the exchange editor. “Somebody else wrote that, and we might be accused of plagiarism. We must have this thing original. Suppose we say—now just suppose we say —‘ Why did I spout my Ben ?’ ” “ Is that new ?” inquired the sweet rosy lips. “At least I never heard it before. I don’t know what it means.” “ New ? ’Deed it’s new. Ben is the Presbyterian name for overcoat, and spout means to pawn. ‘ Why did I spout my Ben P’ means why did I shove my topper. That’s what twilight would think of first, you know. Oh, don’t be afraid — that’s just immense ?” “ Well, I’ll leave it to you,” said the glorious girl with a smile that pinned the exchange editor’s heart to his spine. “ This is the fourth verse :

“ ‘ The merry milkmaid’s sombre song Re-echoes from the rocks,

As silently she trips along ” ’ ‘ ‘ With holes in both her socks,’ by Jove?” cried the delighted exchange editor. “You see—” “Oh, no, no!” remonstrated the blushing maiden. “ Not that.” “ Certainly.” protested the exchange editor, warming up. “ Nine to four she’s got’em ; and you get fidelity to fact with a wealth of poetical expression. The worst of poetry generally is you can’t state things as they are. It ain’t like prose. But here we’ve bursted all the established notions, and put up an actual existence with a veil of genuine poetry over it. I think that’s the best idea we’ve struck yet, * Socks ’ rhymes with the ‘ rocks ’ and beautifies them, while it touches up the milkmaid, and by describing her condition shows her to be a child of the very nature you are showing up.” “ I think you’re right,” said the sweet angel. And she left.—“ Brooklyn Eagle.”