and are always sure to score--
Dash that rapping chap entreating entrance at my Office-door!
It is an infernal bore!

Presently I grew more placid (Optimists should not be acid.)
"Come in!" I exclaimed--"con_found_ you! Pray stand drumming there
no more."
But the donkey still kept tapping. "Dolt!" I muttered, sharply
snapping,
"Why the deuce do you come rapping, rapping at my Office-door?
Yet not 'enter' when you're told to?"--here I opened wide the door--
Darkness there, and nothing more.

Open next I flung the shutter, when, with a prodigious flutter,
In there stepped a bumptious Raven, black as any blackamoor.
Not the least obeisance made he, not a moment stopped or stayed he,
But with scornful look, though shady, perched above my Office-door,
Perched upon BRITANNIA's bust that stood above my Office-door--
Perched, and sat, and seemed to snore.

"Well," I said, sardonic smiling, "this is really rather riling;
"It comports not with decorum such as the War Office bore
In old days stiff and clean-shaven. Dub me a Gladstonian craven
If I ever saw a Raven at the W.O. before.
Tell me what your blessed name is. '_Rule Britannia_' held of yore,"
Quoth the bird, "'Tis so no more!"

Much I marvelled this sophistic fowl to utter pessimistic
Fustian, which so little meaning--little relevancy bore
To the rule of me and SOLLY; but, although it may sound folly,
This strange fowl a strange resemblance to "Our Only General" wore,
To the W-LS-L-Y whose pretensions to sound military lore
Are becoming quite a bore.

But the Raven, sitting lonely on that much-peeled bust, spake only
Of our Army as a makeshift, small, ill-manned, and precious poor.
Drat the pessimistic bird!--he grumbled of "the hurdy-gurdy
Marching-past side of a soldier's life in peace." "We've fought
before,
Winning battles with boy-troops," I cried, "We'll do as we before--"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore!"

"Nonsense!" said I. "After dinner at the Holborn, as a winner
Spake I in the _Pangloss_ spirit to the taxpayers, (_Don't_ snore!)
Told them our recruits--who'll master e'en unmerciful disaster,
Come in fast and come in faster, quite as good as those of yore,"--
"Flattering tales of (Stan) Hope!" cried the bird, whose dismal
dirges bore,
One dark burden--"Nevermore!"

"H