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Schoolboy's Apprentice, by E. V. Lucas

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Title: The Flamp, The Ameliorator, and The Schoolboy's Apprentice

Author: E. V. Lucas

Release Date: November 10, 2009 [EBook #30445]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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The Flamp, The Ameliorator, and The Schoolboy's Apprentice

By E. V. LUCAS

LONDON: GRANT RICHARDS
1900

_First printed October_ 1897
_Reprinted December_ 1897
" _August_ 1899
" _December_ 1900

_CONTENTS_

_The Flamp_

_The Ameliorator_

_The Schoolboy's Apprentice_

The Flamp

_TO MOLLY AND HILDA_.

_That sunny afternoon in May,_
_How stealthily we crept away,_
_We three--(Good things are done in threes:_
_That is, good things in threes are done_
_When you make two and I make one.)--_
_To hatch our small conspiracies!_

_Between the blossomy apple-trees_
_(You recollect?) we sped, and then_
_Safe in the green heart of the wood_
_We breathed again._
_The purple flood the bluebells made_
_Washed round about us where we stood,_
_While voices, where the others played,_
_Assured us we were not pursued._

_A fence to climb or wriggle through,_
_A strip of meadow wet with dew_
_To cross, and lo! before us flared_
_The clump of yellow gorse we shared_
_With five young blackbirds and their mother._
_There, close beside our partners' nest,_
_And free from Mr. C. (that pest!),_
_And careless of the wind and damp,_
_We framed the story of_ The Flamp.

_And O! Collaborators kind,_
_The wish is often in my mind,_
_That we, in just such happy plight,--_
_With Chanctonbury Ring in sight,--_
_Some day may frame another._

E. V. L.
1896.

The Flamp

I

Once upon a time there dwelt in