BANKER POETS.

[TO THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR."]

Ste,—The following correspondence in verse and in rhymed prose, which has lately passed between two eminent Bankers, will, I feel sure, interest your readers.—I am, Sir, &c.,

1o:wows.

TO DR. LEAF ON THE APPEARANCE OF HIS NEW BOOK.

BORN of a poor but gentle home

I got a " modern " education, The mysteries of Greece and Rome, The Parthenon, the Catacomb, Were quite outside my information.

Not 'til the leisure of a Bank (Long lost with these belligerent nations !) Provided moments when I sank Into a chair and from their rank Took down my library translations, Did my excitement equal Keats, When Chapman's Homer loomed terrific, And his poetical conceits, Envisaged Cortez with his suites Mute, but admiring the Pacific.

Succeeded Gibbon's numerous tomes, From which my tousled brains remember A million desolated homes, A thousand devastated domes, And human life one drear December.

Yet even in those dreadful days Of venial priest and poisoned chalice Bloody, interminable frays, The gladiator's dying gaze, The grave a boon and life a malice, The human heart, despite her gloom, Heard in the sky the lark's loud singing, Savoured the rose's sweet perfume, And hand in hand the maid and groom Gazed at the swifts to Nubia winging. New harvests sprang, the purple le Vine Supplied the hymeneal cup its Falernian vintages of wine, Nor longer might the flocks decline For Zeus forbore to vex his puppets.

Nay-! when his angry bolts were flung And Emperor and slave lay dying,

The Poet left no song unsung,

But ever with his lyre unwrung Sang to the skies, the Fates defying.

So runs his race. For while we see Crowns drop from kingly heads, and canker Attack the hereditary tree, Yet there is left one Leaf to be At once a Poet and a Banker.

HENRY BELL,

6 Sussex Place, January 16th, 1922. Regent's Park, N.W. 1. DEAR BELL, —Your quite delightful letter, its wisdom, kindli- ness and wit, have won my heart ; I'm all the better, my honoured friend, for having it. But when I think how you can pour your heart in lines of lofty pathos, that touch our feelings to the core, my own poor scribblings look like bathos. Alas, I am no poet, I ! All I can do is just to copy the thoughts that other mon supply —I hope in English not too sloppy 1 Originality's the test, and it is right the world should know it. I am but second-hand at best ; you are the real banker-poet.

W. L.

[It is delightful to have proof that in spite of the miasmas of inflation Atticus still reigns in the Bank Parlour.—En. Spectator.]