TRIO. "RAIN! RAIN! GO AWAY! COME AGAIN ANOTHER DAY!"]

* * * * *

TO MY COOK.

[Illustration]

Oh, hard of favour, fat of form,
How fairer art thou than thy looks,
Whose heart with kitchen fires is warm,
Thou plainest of the plainer Cooks!

Low down upon thy forehead grows
Thick hair of no conducive dye;
Short and aspiring is thy nose,
Watched ever by a furtive eye.

In shy defiance rarely seen
Where kitchen stairways darkly tend,
A foe to judge thee by thy mien,
Proclaimed in every act a friend!

I know thee little; not thy views
On public or on private life,
Whether a single lot thou'dst choose,
Or fain would'st be a Guardsman's wife;

For who can rightly read the change
When, still'd the work-day traffic's din,