ADAM And, when he went to bed each night, He made his couch upon the soil; "When Eve appeared upon the scene." The glow-worms gave him all his light, Precious! I soar! I soar! ANON. A Letter Heading by Rudyard Kipling GOOD AND BAD If I was as bad as they say I am, worse If each for the other was took? GEORGE BARR BAKER. This remark was made by a bad, bold convict to his vain, virtuous, visiting chaplain. Your personal answer to the question is an indication of your char acter. MAVRONE One of Those Sad Irish Poems, With Notes From Arranmore the weary miles I've come; A Shrawn that's kep' me silent, speechless, dumb, An' was it then the Shrawn of Eire, you'll say, It was not that; nor was it, by the way, The Sons of Garnim blitherin' their drool; Nor was it any Crowdie of the Shee, Or Itt, or Himm, nor wail of Barryhoo My favourite of the whole bunch. A Shrawn is a pure Gaelic noise, something like a groan, more like a shriek, and most like a sigh of longing. Eire was daughter of Carne, King of Connaught. Her lover, Murdh of the Open Hand, was captured by Greatcoat Mackintosh, King of Ulster, on the plain of Carrisbool, and made into soup. Eire's grief on this sad occasion has become proverbial. Garnim was second cousin to Manannan MacLir. His sons were always sad about something. There were twenty-two of them, and they were all unfortunate in love at the same time, just like a chorus at the opera. "Blitherin' their drool" is about the same as "dreeing their weird." ARTHUR GUITERMAN. sounds. The Itt and Himm were the irregular, or insurgent, fairies. They never got any offices or patronage. See MacAlester, Polity of the Sidhe of West Meath, page 985. The Barryhoo is an ancient Celtic bird about the size of a Mavis, with lavender eyes and a black-crape tail. It continually mourns its mate (Barrywhich, feminine form), which has an hereditary predisposition to an early and tragic demise and invariably dies first. Magraw, a Gaelic term of endearment, often heard on the baseball fields of Donnybrook. These last six words are all that tradition has preserved of the original incantation by means of which Irish rats were rhymed to death. Thereby hangs a good Celtic tale, which I should be glad to tell you in this note; but the publishers say that being prosed to death is as bad as being rhymed to death, and that the readers won't stand for any more. |