AT MADAME MANICURE'S

Daintiest of Manicures!

What a cunning hand is yours;

And how awkward, rude and great

Mine, as you manipulate!

Wonderfully cool and calm

Are the touches of your palm

To my fingers, as they rest

In their rosy, cosey nest,

While your own, with deftest skill,

Dance and caper as they will,—

Armed with instruments that seem

Gathered from some fairy dream —

Tiny spears, and simitars

Such as pixy armorers

Might have made for jocund fays

To parade on holidays,

And flash round in dewy dells,

Lopping down the lily-bells;

Or in tilting, o'er the leas,

At the clumsy bumblebees,

Splintering their stings, perchance,

As the knights in old romance

Snapped the spears of foes that fought

In the jousts at Camelot!

Smiling? Dainty Manicure?—

‘ Twould delight me, but that you're

Simply smiling, as I see,

At my nails and not at me!

Haply this is why they glow

And light up and twinkle so!