PERVERSITY.

Evening Star, Issue 11434, 29 December 1900, Page 3

PERVERSITY.

My father frowns, my mother sighs, My grandam, with begoggled eyes, Becites me maxims, wondrous wise, On prudence and gentility. They aH 'of Lydia love to prate As my one matrimonial fate; Her virgin charms they celebrate With ceaseless volubility. Of how she shines in equal ways At French or German—sings and plays, Embroiders, paints—for days and days Eulogiums do I hear anew. And then her parents' wealth galore, Their steeds; and coaches by the score, Their Newport villa—nay, still more, Their palace ou Fifth Avenue. But ah, in vain my kindred plead! The girl I love, the girl I need, The girl Til dare to wed, indeed, Unmoved by all caste's mummeries, Is but a sempstress, young and shy, Whose glittering needle—what know I Its dexterous art may sometimes ply On Lydia's cobweb flummeries. With Phyllis in her Harlem flat (Shabby, and five floors high at that) I'd rather spend an hour of chat And watch her smile's coy trickeries Then dance till dawn, in Lydia's thrall, At some Delmoniconian ball, Though light along the floor should fall Her footstep as Terpsichore's. Edgar Fawcbtt, U.S.A.