POETRY.
TO " J. K. S."
YES, Jim, I sympathise with all
Your snorts of righteous indignation At twang of bat, and whang of ball : 'Tis sacrilege : 'tis desecration. How could a high-souled poet pardon Such usage of the College Garden P No doubt you hold the Muses' brief, You plead the cause of Faun and Dryad, And of the wily winged thief Whose mother was the winsome Pleiad, The cause of moonstruck bards who follow The train of golden-haired Apollo.
Your brow is ridged with heavy frown At creatures who promote digestion Skipping, where once the shade was brown With deep ambrosial suggestion. How dares he flout the moons shine P The Philistine ! the Philistine !
Shame on the bavin wit that skips And gambols on a sward enchanted, Where many an elf the dewdrop sips, And elm-tree boles are fairy-haunted,- Intruder of our fair demesne !
Fouler of spotless Hippocrene !
Thy wrath is just, but is it wise To fume and fret, to stamp and splutter, When prudence bids thee temporise And smoothly spread the melting butter P Just humour him with kindly greeting, When next the College holds a meeting.
Why should an agile Don perspire Unseen, niahonoured ; cutting, smashing, Despite of years,—shall none admire P (And one at least his teeth is gnashing.) Why should he hide his light ?—in short, Why not have Tennis in the Court ?
And here I pause,—the abandoned thought
Might even pale your bronzed cheek, Jim, Though precedents you set at naught, And wave aside all scruples weak, J**, Scorning the wrath of blatant Fellows, And Mumbo-Jumbo's anguished bellows.
'Tis but a dream, yet what a dream !
Fancy, that wondrous scene unravel ; Paint the crisp grass, the lazy stream, The breathless crowd upon the gravel ; While from above, with pensive air,
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