POETRY.
BALLADE OF MORSE—THE EXPERT.
Toe thudding bane of every train that runs, The splattering metre of a horse's trot, The champing of a schoolboy eating buns: All these I hear in terms of dash and dot.
A motor-horn, the echoes of a shot, A drayman's curses, or a peewit'e cry Are MORSE to me, and will bo MORSE, I wot, Till the Last Trump shall sound (in Moues) " CL"' What is the rhythm of the reeling guns ? What keeps the planets to their staid gavotte ? What is the lightning-flash ? the thunder-guns ? —Celestial Moans, supernal dash and dot. Unreadable since Adam first forgot The code some angel made for use on high : Unchanged to-day, it shall not change one jot Till the Last Trump shall sound in Moan " CL" The true Moans-EMPERT other systems shuns : So does this angel, though that means a lot !
—Just think of Seraphim, those six-winged ones, At Semaphore I—and yet to dash and dot He's constant. At his post he slumbers not, His flares shall call the warriors of the sky To crush anew the Devil's latest plot, Till the Last Trump shall sound in Mouse " CL" Envoi.
O SioNeeente-ANGEL, keep in Heaven some spot
Where I may learn your MORSE and qualify : So may I still delight in dash and dot Till the Last Trump shall sound in Molise " CI."
JOHN ENGL/SE.
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