All that we swore we wouldn't do,
Or should have done, but didn't.

The broken code, the baffled laws
Our little private faults and flaws,
And every naughty habit,
Come whistling through the Waste of Life,
Until one longs to take a knife,
Feel for his heart, and stab it.

Unchanged, exultant, one and all
Rise up spontaneous to the call,
And bring their stings behind them;
But when the search is duly plied
For items on the credit side,
One has a job to find them!

I know not _why_ they change. I know--
None better--how one's feelings grow
Distinctly kin to mutiny,
To see one's assets limping in,
All too preposterously thin
To stand a moment's scrutiny.

I know that shock must follow shock,
Until the sole remaining Rock
That all one's hopes exist on,
Crumbles beneath the crushing force
Of Conscience, kicking like a horse,
And pounding like a piston.

Hardly a little year has past
Since you, I take it, swore to cast
Aside the bonds that girt you,
And thought to stun the dazzled earth,
A pillared Miracle of Worth,
Raised on a plinth of Virtue.

One always does. One wonders why.
One knows that, as the years go by,
One finds the same old blunders,
The same old acts, the same old words;
And as one trots them out in herds,
Or one by one, one wonders;

* * * * *

Another year,--a touch of grey,--
A little stiffness,--day by day
We feel the need of, shall we say,
Goggles to face the sun with,--
A little loss of youthful bloom,--
A little nearer to the Tomb!
(Pardon this momentary gloom)
Bang go the bells. _That's_ done with!

SAIREY

EXCERPTS FROM AN INCONGRUITY

_After A. C. S._

In Spring there are lashings of new books,
In Autumn fresh novels are sold,
They are many, but my shelf has few books,
My comrades, the favourites of old;
Tho' the roll of the cata-logues vary,
Thou alone art unchangeably dear,
O bibulous, beautiful Sairey,
Our Lady of Cheer.

By the whites of thine eyes that were yellow,
By the folds of thy duplicate chin,
By thy voice that was husky but mellow
With gin, with the richness of gin,
By thy scorn of the boy that was Bragi