ir the wild strings once more to exaltation;
So and so only the impetuous god
Pound in my bosom and produce that odd
Tum-tiddly-um sensation.

And often as I heard the throstles vamp,
Pouring their liquid notes like golden syrup,
Out would I go and round the garden tramp,
Wearing goloshes if the day were damp,
And imitate their chirrup.

Or, bowling peacefully upon my bike,
Well breakfasted, by no distractions flustered,
Pause near a leafy copse or brambled dyke,
And answer song for song the black-backed shrike,
The curlew and the bustard.

But now--ah, why prolong the dreadful strain?--
Limply my hand the unstrung harp relaxes;
The dear old days will not come back again
Whatever Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
Does with the nation's taxes.

Lambs, buds, leap up; the lark to heaven climbs;
Bread does the same; the price of baccy's brutal;
And save (I do not note it in _The Times_)
They make exemptions for evolving rhymes,
Dashed if I mean to tootle!

EVOE.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Sportsman_ (_just emerged from the brook_). "FOUR IN,
DID YOU SAY? DASH IT ALL--JUST MY LUCK. GOT MY GLASSES ALL MUD AND
CAN'T SEE THER FUN."]

* * * * *

THE METHODS OF GENIUS.

(_BY OUR SPECIAL LITERARY PARASITE_.)

The public already know something of the painful difficulties under
which novelists labour at the present moment owing to the paper
shortage and the enhanced cost of book production. But "the economic
consequences of the Peace" by no means exhaust the handicaps of the
conscientious and sensitive novelist. We are glad therefore to note
the efforts of _The Daily Graphic_ to enlist the sympathy of the
public on behalf of this sorely tried and meritorious class. Our
contemporary tells us, for example, of one momentous writer who was
reduced to dictating blindfold "because the facial peculiarities of
first one and then another amanuensis" upset her equanimity. Then
there is the tragic story of Mr. R.L. HITCHENS, who, being engaged
to write an article against time, sent out for a stenographer, who on
arrival proved to be a man with a large black beard of so sinister
an aspect that Mr. HICHINS was forced to dismiss him and write the
article in his own hand. Yet Mr. HICHENSis not easily put off, for we
learn that he finds he works best in big hotels and not, as we might
have guessed, in the sequest