Terreur des Troglodytes,
Sur leurs tapis de Turquies,
Et de tous les rats de tes
Batrakhomyomakhyes,
Homère: Méridarpax,
Volcur de portioncule;
Trôxartès et Psikharpax,
Par qui Péléiôn reculc.
This is quite an average specimen of the manner of the poet of the bats: if, however, one prefers a greater simplicity, we need but turn the page, and we read:
La nuit tous les chats sent gris,
Toutes les souris sont fauves:
Chauves-souris et chat-chauves,
Chats-chauves chauves-souris!
It is not a quality that the author would probably appreciate, but the quality that most impresses in this book is the extraordinary diligence that must have been required to produce it. There is not a spontaneous verse in it, from beginning to end few would seem to have required thought, but none could have failed to demand labour. At its best it has that funambulesque air of the Whistler portrait; when it is not playing tricks it is ambling along stolidly; but the quintessential
