with me and now you've
played a round with our Candidate."

"Redford," I said, "when that dear old gentleman came along I felt that I
had acted improperly in introducing political acerbity on the links. I was
wrong, and as a proof of it I am willing to play level with any politician
in the club for the same stakes--providing that his handicap is over
twenty."

* * * * *

"_PEREANT QUI ANTE NOS...._"

["Before the Love of Letters, overdone,
Had swamped the sacred poets with themselves."--TENNYSON.]

"The poets of an older time,"
Grumbled ROSSETTI JONES one day,
"Have used up every blessed rhyme
And collared every thought sublime,
Leaving us nothing new to say.

"They've sung the Game of War as played
By gods and men, heroic peers;
They've sung the love of man and maid,
To Life their laughing tribute paid,
Nor grudged grim Death his toll of tears.

"What _can_ a modern poet sing,
Describe, imagine or invent?
They've been before, they've tapped the spring,
They've laid their hands on everything,
Staked out the spacious firmament.

"Last week, a line that did me proud
Flashed on me, strolling down the Strand:--
'I wandered lonely as a cloud;'
Then conscience suddenly avowed
The simile was second-hand.

"Take birds, for instance. No remark
Of mine on birds could but be stale;
SHELLEY and WORDSWORTH own the lark
(Which SHAKSPEARE too had bid us hark),
While KEATS has bagged the nightingale.

"With rose and lily surfeited,
BURNS sang the daisy. Here's a fraud
Of TENNYSON'S: _I_ might have said
How daisies crimson 'neath the tread
Of more attractive girls than _Maud_!

"You think you've something up to date?
You'll find it's been already done;
I'd like to clean the blooming slate;
Their footprints I'd obliterate;
I want my corner in the sun."

He ceased. "Yet your revenge," I said,
Taking a classic from his shelves,
"Is ample, surely"; there I read
How moderns vex the sacred dead,
Swamping old poets with themselves.

* * * * *

CAUTIOUS CONCLUSIONS.

(_By a Westministering Angel._)

["Looking back at what has been achieved, we can gain fresh courage
for the perplexities of the moment, in the sure and certain hope that
with energy and goodwill the task of social amelioration will be
safely acc