POETRY.
MASTER AND PUPIL (To J. F. R.) Two years ago I taught him Greek, And used to give him hints on bowling His classics were a trifle weak ; His " action " needed some controlling. Convinced of my superior nous I thought him crude, and I was rather Inclined, as master of his House, To treat him like a heavy father.
I wrote the usual reports Upon his " lack of concentration " ; Though certainly at winter Sports He did not earn this condemnation.
I took him out San Moritz way One Christmas, and our rase inverted, For in the land of ski and sleigh His mastery was soon assorted.
I thought him just a normal lad, . Well-mannered, wholesome, unaffected; The makings of a Galahad In him I had not yet detected ; • And when I strove to mend his style, Blue-pencilling his exercises, I little guessed that all the while His soul was ripe for high emprises.
Two years ago ! and hero I am, Rejected as unfit ; still trying (As Verrall taught me on the Cam) To make Greek Plays electrifying. And he who, till he was eighteen, Found life one long excuse for laughing, For eighteen solid months has been Continuously " strafed " or " strafing.';
Elt writes me letters from the front
Which prove, although he doesn't know it,. That though his words are plain and blunt, He has the vision of a poet ; And lately; on his eight days' rest, Aar long months of hard campaigning, He came, and lo ! an angel guest I was aware of entertaining, About himself he seldom spoke, But often of his widowed mother, And how she nobly bore the stroke That robbed them of his sailer brother.
And still, from loyalty or whim, He would defer to my opinion, Unconscious how I envied him His hard-earned gift of self-dominion.
For he had faced the awful King Of Shadows in the derksome Valley, And scorned the terrors of his sting In many a perilous storm and sally. Firm in the faith that never tires Or thinks that man is God-forsaken, From war's fierce seven-times-heated fires He had emerged unseared, unshaken.
There are, alas ! no sons of mine To serve their country in her trial, Embattled in the cause divine Of sacrifice and self-denial ; But if there were, I could not pray That God might shield them from disaster More strongly than I plead to-day For this my pupil and my master.
0. IL
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