In the old ten-acre pasture, Lookin' eastward toward a tree, There's a Purple Cow a-settin' And I know she thinks of me. For the wind is in the gum-tree, And the hay is in the mow, And the cow-bells are a-calling "Come and see a Purple Cow!" But I am not going now, Not at present, anyhow, For I am not fond of purple, and I can't abide a cow; No, I shall not go to-day, Where the Purple Cattle play, Though I think I'd rather see one Than to be one, anyhow.

MR. O. HERFORD:

Children, observe the Purple Cow, You cannot see her, anyhow; And, little ones, you need not hope Your eyes will e'er attain such scope. But if you ever have a choice To be, or see, lift up your voice And choose to see. For surely you Don't want to browse around and moo.

MR. S. CRANE:

Once a man said, I never saw a Purple Cow; Again he spoke, I never hope to see one. Then all the people said, How noble his humble-mindedness! How glorious his meek resignation! Now this is the strange part— The man has seen hundreds of purple cows, Ay, thousands, But the man was color blind, And the cows seemed to him to be a reddish brown.

MR. D.G. ROSSETTI:

(Second Attempt.)

The blessed Purple Cow leaned out From a pasture lot at even One horn was sixteen inches long, The other just eleven. She had a ruminative face, And the teeth in her head were seven. She gazed and listened, then she said (Less sad of speech than queer), "Nobody seems to notice me, None knows that I am here. And no one wishes to be me!" She wept. (I heard a tear.)

MR. A.C. SWINBURNE:

(Second Attempt.)

Only in dim, drowsy depths of a dream do I dare to delight in deliciously dreaming Cows there may be of a passionate purple,—cows of a violent violet-hue; Ne'er have I seen such a sight, I am certain it is but a demi- delirious dreaming— Ne'er may I happily harbor a hesitant hope in my heart that my dream may come true. Sad is my soul, and my senses are sobbing, so strong is my strenuous spirit to see one. Dolefully, drearily doomed to despair as warily, wearily watching I wait; Thoughts thickly thronging are thrilling and throbbing; to see is a glorious gain—but to be one! That were a darker and direfuller destiny, that were a fearfuller, frightfuller fate.

At the second meeting of the Re-Echo Club, some of whose proceedings have already been chronicled in these pages, the question arose whether the poet was at his best who gave to the world the classic poem about The Little Girl:

"There was a little girl And she had a little curl Right in the middle of her forehead. And when she was good, She was very, very good, And when she was bad she was horrid!"

Some members held that poets had at times risen to sublimer poetic flights than this, while others contended that the clear-cut decision of thought it expressed placed the poem above more elaborate works.

When those who criticised it were invited themselves to treat the same theme in more worthy fashion, they willingly enough agreed, and the results here subjoined were spread upon the minutes of the club.

With a lady-like air of reserve tempered by self-respect, Mrs. Felicia Hemans presented her version:

The Marcel waves dash'd high Where the puffs and frizzes crossed; And just above a roguish eye A little curl was tossed. And that little curl hung down O'er a brow like a holy saint; Her goodness was beyond renown, And yet—there was a taint. Ay, call it deadly sin, The temper that she had; But that Little Girl just gloried in Freedom to be real bad!

Robert Browning gave the subject much thought and responded at length:

Who will may hear the poet's story told. His story? Who believes me shall behold The Little Girl, tricked out with ringolet, Or fringe, or pompadour, or what you will, Switch, bang, rat, puff—odzooks, man! I know not What women call the hanks o' hair they wear! But that same curl, beau-catcher, love-lock, frizz. (Perchance hot-ironed—perchance 'twas bandolined; Mayhap those rubber squirmers gave it shape— I wot not.) But that corkscrew of a curl Hung plumb, true, straight, accurate, at mid-brow, Nor swerved a hair's breadth to the right or left. Aught of her other tresses none may know. Now go we straitly on. And undertake To sound the humor of the Little Girl. Ha! what's the note? Hark here. When she was good, She was seraphic; hypersuperfine. So good she made the saints seem scalawags; An angel child; a paramaragon. Halt! Turn! When she elected to be bad, Black fails to paint the depths of ignomin, The fearsome sins, the crimes unspeakable, The deep abysses of her evilment. Hist! Tell 't wi' bated breath! One day she let A rosy tongue-tip from red lips peep forth! Can viciousness cap that? Horrid's the word. Yet there she is. There is that Little Girl, Her goodness and her badness, side by side, Like bacon, streak o' fat and streak o' lean. Ah, Fatalist, she must be ever so.

Mr. E.A. Poe declared that he wrote his lines without any trouble at all, as he used to know the Little Girl personally:

'Twas not very many years ago, At Seahurst-By-The-Sea, A little girl had a little curl— Her name was Annabel Lee. And right in the middle of Annabel's brow That curl would always be. She was so good, oh, she was so good At Seahurst-By-The-Sea! She was good with a goodness more than good, Was beautiful Annabel Lee, With such goodness the winged seraphs of heaven Coveted her of me. But her badness was stronger by far than the good, Like many far older than she, Like many far wiser than she; And neither the angels in heaven above Nor the demons down under the sea Can ever dissever the good from the bad In the soul of Annabel Lee, The beautiful Annabel Lee.

Then Mr. Stevenson went out into his own garden and plucked this:

In winter, I go up at night And curl that curl by candle-light; In summer, quite the other way, I have to curl it twice a day. When I am good, I seem to be As good as peaches on the tree; But when I'm bad I've awful ways, I'm horrid, everybody says. And does it not seem hard to you, I have to choose between the two? When I'm not happy, good and glad, I have to be so awful bad!

Mr. Kipling took a real interest in the work and produced the following:

"What is the gas-stove going for?" Asked Files-On-Parade. "To curl my hair, to curl my hair?" His Little Sister said. "What makes you curl so tight, so tight?" Asked Files-On-Parade. "I'm thinkin' 'twill be damp to-night," His Little Sister said. "For you know that when I'm good, I'm just as good as I can be. And when I'm bad, there's nobody can be as bad as me. So I'm thinkin' I'll be very good to-night, because, you see, I'm thinkin' I'll be horrid in the morning."

Mr. Hood was in a reminiscent mood, so he looked backward:

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