BLACK MONDAY.

A New View of the Sad Sea Waves,

(ILLUSTRATED.)

WHXnd why does Clara sit so pale and pensive?

WHY gazes Laura o'er the bounding brine?

The business, I know, is none of mine,

But still, I trust the question's not offensive.
Observe how Laura scans the ocean-line

With shaded eyes, and glances comprehensive;
While Clara rests sad elbow upon sad knee,
And sad cheek on sad hand, like Ariadne!

Ay, there's the grievance! 'Tis as old as pity!
The Fates inexorable, hard, and strange,
Have driven back young Theseus to the City,
Where he's engaged upon the Stock Exchange.
The Husbands' Boat-so christened by the witty-
Is bearing him beyond her vision's range,
And well our mournful Ariadne Latter-day
Knows that he won't come back again till Saturday.

And Laura's grief is not all sympathetic

The Husbands' Boat can carry lovers too!

And there's a certain rifleman athletic,

Who draws from Government his yearly screw

For Civil Service-whom that energetic

And snorting boat is bearing from her view;
Wishing the office in realms diabolic
He seeks Pall Mall-and feels pall-melancholic!

Meanwhile the Foreland snatches him from sight;
And he, and Clara's loving spouse, to still a

Depressing feeling of desertion, light—

This his brown meerschaum-that his mild manilla.

The ladies, most disconsolate in plight,

Vainly seek comfort in their sea-side villa,

(I'll bet my life on't that you've never seen abodes

Less homelike and more cheerless than marine abodes).

So all the week they sigh beside the sea

Through Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday;-Hail the approach of Saturday with glee

And make of it a holiday and high day;

And through the week surmising if 'twill be

A wet and windy or a fine and dry day.

On other days they'd sea, and sand, and rock exchange

One for Pall Mall-the other for the Stock Exchange.