* *

"None are much better than others, and some are much worse."--_New
Zealand Paper._

We fear the writer is a pessimist.

* * * * *

TAFFY THE FOX.

[Mr. HORATIO BOTTOMLEY has complained of the war-time efforts of the
POET LAUREATE, and desires the appointment of a national bard whose
mind is more attuned to the soul of the British nation. Recent
political events are not of course a very inspiring subject for
serious verse, but we have tried to do our feeble best here in faint
imitation of one of the manners of Mr. JOHN MASEFIELD.]

Safe and snug from the wind and rain
In a thick of gorse with a tranquil brain
The fox had slept, and his dreams were all
Of the wild Welsh hills and the country's call;
He slept all night in the Wan Tun Waste,
He woke at dawn and about he faced,
He flexed his ears and he flaired the breeze
And scratched with his foot some poor wee fleas;
He sat on his haunches, doubted, stood;
To his left were the lairs of his native wood,
The deep yew darkness of Cowall Itchen;
He flaired, I say, with his nostrils twitching
Till he smelt the sound of the Fleet Street stunt
And over the hillside came the Hunt.

* * * * *

Over the hillside, clop, clip, clep,
And the dappled beauties, Ginger and Pep,
Live Wire, Thruster, Fetch Him and Snatch Him,
They were coming to bite him and pinch him and scratch him,
Whimpering, nosing, scenting his crimes,
The Evening News and The Morning Times.
"Yooi! On to him! Yooi there!" Hounds were in;
He slunk like a ghost to the edge of the whin;
"Hark! Holloa! Hoick!" They were on his trail.

* * * * *

The huntsman, Alfred, rode The Mail,
A bright bay mount, his best of prancers,
Out of Forget-me-not by Answers.
A thick-set man was Alf, and hard;
He chewed a straw from the stable-yard;
He owned a chestnut, The Dispatch,
With one white sock and one white patch;
And had bred a mare called Comic Cuts;
He was a man with fearful guts.
So too was Rother, the first whip,
Nothing could give this man the pip;
He rode The Mirror, a raking horse,
A piebald full of points and force.
All that was best in English life,
All that appealed to man or wife,
Sweet peas or standard bread or sales
These two men loved. They hated Wales.

* * * *