The Scarlet Gown | Page 7

ahead
In a fervid defence of the Stage,
Get checked in your noble rage
By
somehow losing your thread?
Did you ever rise to reply
To a toast (say 'The Volunteers'),
And
evoke loud laughter and cheers,
When you didn't exactly know why?
Did you ever wax witty, and when
You had smashed an opponent quite small,
Did he seem not to mind
it at all,
But get up and smash you again?
If any or all of these things
Have happened to you (as to me),
I think you'll be found to agree

With yours truly, when sadly he sings:
'How many the troubles that wait
On mortals!--especially those
Who endeavour in eloquent prose
To
expound their views, and orate.'
MILTON
WITH APOLOGIES TO LORD TENNYSON
O swallow-tailed purveyor of college sprees,
O skilled to please the

student fraternity,
Most honoured publican of Scotland,
Milton, a name to adorn the Cross Keys;
Whose chosen waiters,
Samuel, Archibald,
Helped by the boots and marker at billiards,
Wait, as the smoke-filled, crowded chamber
Rings to the roar of a Gaelic chorus--
Me rather all those temperance
hostelries,
The soda siphon fizzily murmuring,
And lime fruit juice and seltzer water
Charm, as a wanderer out in South Street,
Where some recruiting,
eager Blue-Ribbonites
Spied me afar and caught by the Post Office,
And crimson-nosed the latest convert
Fastened the odious badge upon me.
MAGNI NOMINIS UMBRA
St. Andrews! not for ever thine shall be
Merely the shadow of a mighty name,
The remnant only of an ancient
fame
Which time has crumbled, as thy rocks the sea.
For thou, to whom was given the earliest key
Of knowledge in this land (and all men came
To learn of thee), shalt
once more rise and claim
The glory that of right belongs to thee.
Grey in thine age, there yet in thee abides
The force of youth, to make thyself anew
A name of honour and a place of power.
Arise, then! shake the dust

from off thy sides;
Thou shalt have many where thou now hast few;
Again thou shalt be great. Quick come the hour!
SONG FROM 'THE PRINCESS'
As through the street at eve we went
(It might be half-past ten),
We fell out, my friend and I,
About the
cube of x+y,
And made it up again.
And blessings on the falling out
Between two learned men,
Who fight on points which neither knows,
And make it up again!
For when we came where stands an inn
We visit now and then,
There above a pint of beer,
Oh there above
a pint of beer,
We made it up again.
ANDREW M'CRIE
FROM THE UNPUBLISHED REMAINS OF EDGAR ALLAN
POE
It was many and many a year ago,
In a city by the sea,
That a man there lived whom I happened to know
By the name of Andrew M'Crie;
And this man he slept in another
room,
But ground and had meals with me.

I was an ass and he was an ass,
In this city by the sea;
But we ground in a way which was more than
a grind,
I and Andrew M'Crie;
In a way that the idle semis next door
Declared was shameful to see.
And this was the reason that, one dark night,
In this city by the sea,

A stone flew in at the window, hitting
The milk-jug and Andrew M'Crie.
And once some low-bred tertians
came,
And bore him away from me,
And shoved him into a private house
Where the people were having tea.
Professors, not half so well up in their work,
Went envying him and me--
Yes!--that was the reason, I always
thought
(And Andrew agreed with me),
Why they ploughed us both at the end
of the year,
Chilling and killing poor Andrew M'Crie.
But his ghost is more terrible far than the ghosts
Of many more famous than he--
Of many more gory than he--
And
neither visits to foreign coasts,
Nor tonics, can ever set free
Two well-known Profs from the
haunting wraith
Of the injured Andrew M'Crie.

For at night, as they dream, they frequently scream,
'Have mercy, Mr. M'Crie!'
And at morn they will rise with bloodshot
eyes,
And the very first thing they will see,
When they dare to descend to
their coffee and rolls,
Sitting down by the scuttle, the scuttle of coals,
With a volume of notes on its knee,
Is the spectre of Andrew M'Crie.
AN INTERVIEW
I met him down upon the pier;
His eyes were wild and sad,
And something in them made me fear
That he was going mad.
So, being of a prudent sort,
I stood some distance off,
And before speaking gave a short
Conciliatory cough.
I then observed, 'What makes you look
So singularly glum?'
No notice of my words he took.
I said, 'Pray, are you dumb?'
'Oh no!' he said, 'I do not think
My power of speech is lost,
But
when one's hopes are black as ink,
Why, talking is a frost.
'You see, I'm in for Math. again,
And certain to be ploughed.
Please tell me