POE TRY.
DORRY AT THE CIRCUS.* WE took her to a circus. Sitting there Voted the entertainment pretty fair With half-yawns ; but our Dony, being four, Breathed fast, had bright eyes fixed as if some door Flew open from lost Eden straight upon The canvas-gloomed arena. One by one Her picture elephants, alive now, came Huge, grey, beloved, miraculous, and tame; Her eager hands looked, cheeks delight made red, Rose-mouth shut silent, spirit-quick gold head Dancing with curls and curled hat-plume she drew Love's smile from strangers. She saw camels, too, Gaunt, sullen, desert shapes that knelt when bid With generations-old slave look. Sweets hid In the smell even, harsh and strange, but good Of beasts; anon in hurried multitude Ran horses, pushing heads, all side by side, How many P—dozens P—underneath the stride Of one great-voiced, red-vested kingly man, Who cracked his whip as wonder-riders can.
Like storm he fled. A woman entered. She Stood on a piebald's back. With bonded knee, Eye-darts, kissed finger-tips and mimic smile,
bid her forced, wom7 utmost to 'beguile
The glance; she had been young once, and perhaps Handsome, who knows l'—with calls and loud hand-claps
'True of a child of four called Dora.
Approved by dandy shop-lads. Long gone by
That tinsel time of sirenship. Her eye Was bold but lustreless. A dull dead white With gay vermilion hid her wrinkles. Tight, A silver-braided soiled hard jacket closed The body's bulk in. Lavishly disclosed, Her brawny limbs in short thin skirts, which flew Round them and from them, took the unwilling view.
"A piteous spectacle ! I'm almost sorry, I am indeed now, that I brought my Dorry."
Her mother said it, then looked quickly down At the child's face. There still pure joy was shown.
She cried (through hoops yon form begins to whir]): "Oh, see her ! See the darling little girl!"
Dear Innocence, how sweetly fell your word! I wish the jaded mountebank had heard.
Wn.undt GRANT.
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