se,
The source of my woes!
(This metre's too tough, I must draw to a close.)
May Sargent be drowned
In the ocean profound,
And Sidgwick be food for the carrion crows!

AN ORATOR'S COMPLAINT

How many the troubles that wait
On mortals!--especially those
Who endeavour in eloquent prose
To expound their views, and orate.

Did you ever attempt to speak
When you hadn't a word to say?
Did you find that it wouldn't pay,
And subside, feeling dreadfully weak?

Did you ever, when going ahead
In a fervid defence of the Stage,
Get checked in your noble rage
By somehow losing your thread?

Did you ever rise to reply
To a toast (say 'The Volunteers'),
And evoke loud laughter and cheers,
When you didn't exactly know why?

Did you ever wax witty, and when
You had smashed an opponent quite small,
Did he seem not to mind it at all,
But get up and smash you again?

If any or all of these things
Have happened to you (as to me),
I think you'll be found to agree
With yours truly, when sadly he sings:

'How many the troubles that wait
On mortals!--especially those
Who endeavour in eloquent prose
To expound their views, and orate.'

MILTON

WITH APOLOGIES TO LORD TENNYSON

O swallow-tailed purveyor of college sprees,
O skilled to please the student fraternity,
Most honoured publican of Scotland,
Milton, a name to adorn the Cross Keys;
Whose chosen waiters, Samuel, Archibald,
Helped by the boots and marker at billiards,
Wait, as the smoke-filled, crowded chamber
Rings to the roar of a Gaelic chorus--
Me rather all those temperance hostelries,
The soda siphon fizzily murmuring,
And lime fruit juice and seltzer water
Charm, as a wanderer out in South Street,
Where some recruiting, eager Blue-Ribbonites
Spied me afar and caught by the Post Office,
And crimson-nosed the latest convert
Fastened the odious badge upon me.

MAGNI NOMINIS UMBRA

St. Andrews! not for ever thine shall be
Merely the shadow of a mighty name,
The remnant only of an ancient fame
Which time has crumbled, as thy rocks the sea.

For thou, to whom was given the earliest key
Of knowledge in this land (and all men came
To learn of thee), shalt once more rise and claim
The glory that of right belongs to thee.

Grey in thine age, there yet in thee abides
The force of youth, to make thyself anew
A name of hono