POETRY.

THE SCHOLAR SOLDIER.

Si fortuna vast, fies de rhetore

'Twat; in the late Victorian days

When, freed from academic fetters And crowned with academic bays,

He turned to London and to letters. He wrote a perfect Grecian script ; His style in prose was moat audacious ; And his unpublished verse was dipt In honey that he stole from Statics.

But though on Fancy's wing he sped To the Biases or the Tiber, The energetic life he led Betrayed no lack of manly fibre.

For his accomplishments combined

With flair in art and skill in rhyming

A talent of no common kind For cricket, shooting, and for climbing.

He wrote romances, which were meant To edify, and yet were witty; And which the critics turned and rent Without the least pretence of pity. They caused the most indecent glee Among the savage tribe of Bludyer, And one—the best—was said to be "As tough as Meredith, but muddier."

But while it pleased him in the snare Of subtle phrases to enmesh us, Jewels of price were of ten there, Although the setting was too precious. And though Caprice, a wayward guide, Too often east her spells around him, Steadfast upon the Angels' side In the long run you always found him.

Spite of his love of ancient lore, His polished and fastidious manner, In politics be soon forswore Allegiance to the Tory banner ; And, as his philanthropic views Conformed more closely to Lloyd George's, In time he even came to lose His appetite for peaks and gorges.

He grieved for Ireland's discontent, And thought the Union had convulsed her ; Wrote pamphlets on disarmament, And pleaded for coercing Mater. He banned conscription for our sons, Sternly rebuked the Curragh "rebels," And held that Carson with his guns Excused the women with their pebbles.

But we, who in his early prime Had seen him standing up to Lohman, And knew how he could shoot and climb

From Conway and from Baillie-Grohman, Felt in our bones that, on the day

His country called, he'd cease from writing And cast his singing robes away To fight wherever there was fighting.

• • • • •

Twits in the days of late July I met him roaming on Schieballion, But ere a fortnight had gone by He 'listed in a new battalion.

I heard from him the other night To say he'd got his marching orders, And hoped ere long again to write From "somewhere on the Belgian borders."

"I've spent four months in camp with men, And never once regretted joining; The sword is mightier than the pen Of those who cultivate phrase-coining. And if I had ten lives to give, Far sooner would I risk the giving Of ev'ry one of them than live And lose all reasons for my living." C. L. G.