An Invitation to the Reader
Elucidating the Little May-Pole
Festival on the following page
Reader, will you join a gay dance
Of the younger Social Set,
And, amid their merry May-dance,
Personally pirouette?
Don a garment, smart and snappy,
Wear your most engaging smile,
Banish boredom and be happy—
In the world of chic and style.
Cedric woos Celeste—who dances—
Vowing love that never dies;
Ethel sees adoring glances
In athletic Albert’s eyes;
Peter—solvent as Mæcenas,
Lures a mermaid to the shore,
Telling her she looks like Venus,
Which, of course, she’s heard before.
You may dance, while Signor Cupid
Fiddles an entrancing tune;
Or, if you find jazzing stupid,
There are gardens—and a moon!
Life, and all its animation
Bids us join the mad mêlée,
And, to use an old quotation,
Gather rose-buds while we may.
Every make of merry mortal,
Wise or otherwise, is here,
And this page is but the portal
Of another world made clear.
Yes, a world, and you may buy it
In this giddy, gaudy book,
Though, of course, I can’t deny it
Has a rather Fish-y look!
G. S. C.