First Lady (horrified at bright scarlet muffler for Navy, the creation of second lady.) "My dear—the colour! It'll make a target for the Germans!"
Second Lady. "Oh! then it'll have to do for the stoker."
I've seen it oft through beechen stems
In leafy Summer weather;
We've moored the punt its lawns beside
Where peacocks strut in flaunting pride,
The Muse and I together.
Gigantic, as the sun sinks low,
Leaving forlorn the dial;
When zephyrs in the borders stir,
Distilling stock and lavender
To fill some fairy's phial.
(I like to think the story's right—
I had it from the Rector—
Still, don't believe unless you choose!)
Doth walk, between the shapen yews,
A little pretty spectre,
Whose true-love in this garden glade—
A bold, if faithless, follow—
Had loved, but left her for the sake
Of venturing with Frankie Drake,
And died at Puerto Bello;
Of heart-break, so the story goes,
Died very shortly after,
One day—as Art requires—when Spring
Had set the hawthorns blossoming
And waked the lanes to laughter.
Where oft she'd kept a tryst with him,
She nightly comes a-roaming;
And, sorrowing still, yet finds content,
I fancy, where "Sweet Themmes" is blent
With flower-beds and the gloaming
Does still the little phantom stray,
Poor pretty ghost, a-shiver,
When sad flowers droop their weary heads
Along the chill Autummal beds
Beside the misty river?
As sensible as Proserpine—
When Autumn skies do harden,
Go down and coax the seeds to grow
Till daffodillies stand a-row
And April's in the garden?
We've other things to think about
This sorrowful November;
I only know for such sad hours
That dainty ghosts and Summer flowers
Are pleasant to remember.
The Absolute Limit.
The directors of the Bradford Club have reviewed the position in regard to the free admission of soldiers to the ground, the number of men thus admitted having been far greater than was anticipated. It has now been decided that men in uniform or bearing other credentials of service shall be admitted to section E on payment of the nominal sum of 3d. This will prevent the jostling of the ordinary patrons."—Bradford Daily Telegraph.
A cruiser here and there may be sunk, a regiment here and there may be cut up, but thank God our Bradford football patrons will never again be jostled by any of these vulgar soldiers in uniform.
Notice in a Battersea window:—
"Bride Cakes
any size
to suit all pockets.
In these days of narrow skirts most women will find the guinea size sufficient.
