6OOO
K 35
Signa Severa
:nia
1
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
ji|<O 'uo)pOi9
A "N 'n:>DJ*S
SIG-NA SEVERA
R. A. K.
ETON COLLEGE
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., LTD.
1906
SIGNA SEVERA
BY
R. A. K.
ETON COLLEGE
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., LTD.
1906
m
PREFACE,
IN publishing these verses I must offer my
humble apologies to those who will read them.
I must also express my deepest gratitude to'
Mr. R. A. Austen Leigh for suggesting and
undertaking their publication.
I have not as yet discovered any meaning in
the title. Nor is there any meaning in the order
of the poems ; they are arranged almost entirely
chronologically, so that anyone may read the
story of their origin, zenith and decline. Seven-
teen of them were published in the Eton College
Chronicle, certain others in the Amphibian and
the Supplement of 1904. Two of them have
not been previously published. In several
cases . I have made alterations or omissions.
For one of the former on the last page, I am
indebted to Mr. Arthur James.
I also owe my thanks to Mr. R. J. Smith,
proprietor of the Cornhill Magazine, for kind
permission to republish " The Judgment of
iii
942399
Oetone." To Miss Ward I owe the same for
the publication of " Heracles Staying Out,"
originally written in the Visitors' Book of College
Staying Out Rooms.
Let me here take the opportunity of expressing
my gratitude to several fags in Chamber who
have kindly volunteered their help in copying
out the verses. And to many friends and
masters for the deep interest in my work which
they have simulated so realistically.
R. A. K.
ETON,
6". Augustine, 1906.
IV
DEDICATION.
To C. A. A.
Sir, as I venture to import
My humble bays' precocious blossom
Into that most exacting Court,
An academic Microcosm,
I do not dare to represent
How much I have of precedent.
The giants of an earlier day
A later age has held sublime,
Their most ephemeral roundelay
Was born to triumph over time ;
What boots it for a goose to scream
Among the swans of Thames' stream ?
Such high professions I refuse
(Since shame is well replaced by fear);
I would not challenge forth the Muse
That woke the rhythmic strains of Frere,
Nor rouse again the deathless shade
Of sapient Canning, caustic Praed;
v
Nor may I rival him who lies,
A perfect Colleger, at rest,
Who lived his life in godlike wise
Yet gave posterity his best ;
Nor even dare to use the names
Of E. D. S. and Arthur James ;
But rather, like a humble bee,
Some denizen of Matine hives,
I buzz about incessantly,
The bugbear of a thousand lives,
And browse along from thyme to thyme
In this great Paradise of Rhyme.
Yet since I cannot choose but own
Some master on my primal page,
Since somebody must needs atone
For spurring on my tender age,
I ask myself the question : " Who
Could be more suitable than you ? "
You, in whose first connubial bliss
My verses were the only jar,
Who half incited me to this,
Will surely let me go so far
As write three letters none can blame
The three initials of your name.
VI
CONTENTS.
PAGE
ETON v. HARROW i
To THE PROVOST'S GRANDSON, OUR YOUNGEST
BENEFACTOR
DONEC AMNIS REGII UNDA LAMBET AEDES . . 5
A PROSPECTIVE EPITHALAMIUM (C. A. A.) . . . 7
THE EXAMINER 9
TEMPORA MUTANTUR NOS ET MUTAMUR IN ILLIS . u
LAMENT OF THE TAME POET 13
THE ETON MEMORIAL 15
FRAGMENTS OF GREEK POETS 18
His MAJESTY'S VISIT TO ETON 21
OUR COMPETITION 25
THE WILDERNESS 29
GREEK TERMINOLOGY 31
HERACLES STAYING OUT 33
OI ENAEKA 40
MAGISTER REFORMATOR 42
COLLEGE DEBATING SOCIETY 45
INVITATION TO THE COLLEGE DEBATING SOCIETY
JUBILEE DINNER 46
CIRCUMSONOR ARMIS 48
IN MEMORIAM R. C. J 49
THE FINCH AND THE ROBIN 50
THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE . . - . . . 52
THE JUDGMENT OF OETONE 55
BRICKS WITHOUT STRAW 59
THE NEW NEW FLOREAT 61
vii
SIGNA SEVERA,
ETON v. HARROW.
Again the week of carnival ; again
We swarm, a badly-ventilated crew,
A Dantesque vision of a seething train,
To pastures new.
Again we seek the Eton stand, beneath
The chariot of the all too neighbouring sun,
And stare like lions trained by Julius Seeth
's unerring bun.
Again we fall into that sleepy doze,
That looks, and claps, and burbles at the
game,
Or mark the inmates of the dusty rows,
Always the same ;
B
The Living Pricelist of Parisian store
That comes to Lord's to see, and to be seen,
That likes both inningses, but loves far more
The time between ;
The unconvincing man, with rheumy eye,
Who " enthuastically " lifts his head,
Vending statistic tracts that people buy
And leave unread ;
These, and the dainty thimblefuls of ice,
Discreet aversion of the truly wise,
Those frail concoctions sold at double price
And half the size ;
These joys are ours, when summer doth return,
And yet I do not clamour for reform
There is one drawback to the whole concern ;
It's rather warm.
July 1903.
TO THE PROVOST'S GRANDSON,
OUR YOUNGEST BENEFACTOR.
King Edward, whose power is extensive,
Has two birthdays at least in the year,
A charity quite inexpensive,
Which we fully appreciate here;
But this is a greater occasion,
When a holiday comes by decree
For the child of an ancient Foundation,
A Provost to be.
I will not detain you to brag my
Apocryphal tales of his birth,
His Euripidean stenagmi
And Aristophanical mirth ;
How he'll mingle his infantile sweeties
With the scarcely articulate words
Of a short supplementary treatise
On Norway and Birds.
3 B 2
But come, ere the years shall again fleet,
And carry us off and away,
Let us wish our potential Waynflete
" Many happy returns of the day " ;
A prayer we should feel more sincerely
As the age of the infant increased,
If the day should be solemnised yearly
As a Moveable Feast.
November 1903.
DONEC AMNIS REGII
UNDA LAMBET AEDES.
Powers of the Weather, Eternal Invincibles,
Scorners of arguments modestly urged,
Ye, whose Antidicomarian principles
Bask in the prospect of Eton submerged;
Laugh when ye see an Etonian's pleasure
Straitly reduced to inspecting the flood,
Even the pastime of looking for treasure
Whelmed in a depth of alluvial mud !
Lo ! where the running of College progresses,
Fishes, a scale-covered company, gleam;
Arches attract with unwonted recesses
Hamadryadical nymphs of the stream ;
Dorney divorced from her Eton (for walking)
Gazes across with a languorous eye
(Here you may note the advantage of talking
Anthropomorphologistically).
5
Take me away to the country of Isis,*
There where the floods are restricted to one,
There where ichneuma of various sizes
Laugh as they leap in the light of the sun ;
Waft me away on the wings of the morning
Far o'er the track of the whitening foam,
Or, if you cannot take heed of a warning,
Cover the High Street and let us go home !
* i.e. Egypt not Oxford.
February 1904.
A PROSPECTIVE EPITHALAMIUM.
(C. A. A.)
Let the fiat of joy to man and to boy to the
points of the compass go forth,
Which chiefly consist, as you know, of the west
and the east and the south and the north ;
For he, who to College in absence of knowledge
devoted a part of his life,
Will now be consoled, as was Adam of old, by
the comfort and care of a wife.
You may readily guess that I do not profess
their connubial praises to limn,
As at present, I fear, I know nothing of her,
and we all of us know about him,
But I feel that I owe it, as being a poet (irpoa--
Kvvrjo-co 8e rrjv ' A&pda-Tetav) ,
That I owe it, I say, to the school of to-day to
compose an extempore Paian.
7
The sheep will surcease from their usual fleece,
as in Virgil Bucolica IV.,
And don a creation of charming carnation, or
yellow will roam on the shore,
While the treasure inside, which the editors
hide in the slope of a promising hill,
Will burst from the sod like a pea from its
pod, and grow like a hosier's bill.
We shall listen no more to the bronchial roar
of the sweet nocturnivagous cats,
And honey will ooze from the branches of
yews and drip on our favourite hats,
And the Thames with a sense of the truly im-
mense, will Temperance Enthusiasts shock,
By flooding the plain with unstinted champagne
and deluging Dorney with hock.
We shall always compose Ciceronian prose and
show up our verses in time,
And the bread will be new and the showers
will be few, and the Chronicle poems will
rhyme ;
And as soon as their steading has witnessed
the wedding (observe Homericity here),
We shall promptly behold the Saturnian Gold,
and all will be Skittles and Beer.
February 1904.
THE EXAMINER.
There's a very old convention which is worthy
of attention
And is not entirely wrong,
That the " Newca " is a scandal and is hardly
worth the candle,
And certainly not worth a song :
But I'm constantly put out with a philosophic
doubt
Which is altogether just and right,
That it isn't pigs in clover for the man who's
looking over :
The examiner's an ill-used wight.
There are some who fill their papers with the
Corybantic capers
Of inconsequent and uncouth men,
Or confine their lucubrations to the rapturous
sensations
Of the chewing of a goose-quill pen ;
9
But it's rather more exciting to devote oneself
to writing,
And you get a good lot done,
Ere the horologe has finished giving out the
time diminished
By a short half-hour from one.
My caligraphy is rude and my tidiness is crude,
And I haven't much regard for stops ;
And my language is, I take it, as obscure as
they can make it,
And the inkpot sometimes hops ;
But whatever I may do they will have to look
it through,
The examiners arrange all that,
And unless they kick me out when they see
what I'm about
I really should exclaim " My hat ! "
March 1904.
10
TEMPORA . MVTANTVR . NOS . ET
MVTAMVR . IN . ILLIS.
Last year, I spent my day in
The course we call routine ;
I knew the times to play in,
The times to work between ;
The time to cheer the winner,
To go to bed at night,
The time to eat my dinner,
By faith and not by sight.
I lived a life lymphatic,
I ate as eats the cow ;
My watch has been erratic
For quite a lustre now;
And, as recondite reasons
Combined to make it slow,
The times and days and seasons
'Twas not for me to know,
ii
My instinct never faltered,
I lived without a thought ;
But since the times were altered,
What changes have they brought !
My breakfast's passed in shooting
What time my lunch should be,
My dinner spent computing
The hour proscribed for tea.
Nemesis stalks before me
On lame but tireless feet,
With hook and wedge to bore me,
And molten lead complete ;
And till I can get used to
An unbeloved regime,
Existence is reduced to
An arithmetic dream.
May 1904.
12
LAMENT OF THE TAME POET.
Once I have lived on the breath of the Chronicle,
Bowed to its sway as occasion arose,
Plied it with melodies, chiefly sardonical,
Sometimes aspired to contributing Prose;
Humbly I jogged in the footsteps of Blowitz,
Dull was the life and exceedingly slow,
What is the dulness of Chronicle poets
Only a Chronicle reader can know.
Not the remotest objection to lucre
Bids me refuse what my betters enjoin ;
Horace was but an occasional fluker,
Pindar himself was rewarded in coin ;
Small was my lar and its funds were exiguous,
(Though I am always unwilling to hint. . . )
Rarely it was that two numbers contiguous
Saw my poetic effusions in print.
13
One of the usual Chronicle leaders
(Three every Half are exactly the same)
Fired the susceptible hearts of its readers,
Fanned them to quick editorial flame;
Then they arose and they edited papers,
Then (miserabile /) two out of three
Came, in the course of their scavenging capers,
Come to request contributions from me!
Shadowy dreams of potential emoluments
Dazzle my eyes and bewilder my brain;
So might I easily write them a volume and s-
Till have a thousand more laurels to gain ;
Me let a cot by the side of a rivulet
Rather delight, and some cattle to browse;
There in obscurity me if to live you'll let,
I shall be happy to sing to my cows !
June 1904.
THE ETON MEMORIAL.
(Suggested by the subject for Div. I. Verses.)
DRAMATIS PERSONAE.
ETONA Eton Authority.
DAEDALUS Eton Architect.
Chorus of Eton Boys.
Enter ETONA.
Et. I am Etona! name of some repute
(Though I as shouldn't say it) and renown ;
Here with a drooping and a bunged-up eye
(Sad trophy of a Winchester defeat),
Hoofing my way to this Daedalian grot
Where the all-great artificer hangs out.
What ho ! Within there ! Daedalus, I mean.
Enter DAEDALUS.
Da. Lady, all hail ! What could I do for
you ?
15
Et. I have no room to hold my thousand
sons
Da. A numerous family, it seems, is yours.
Et. You were not called upon to make re-
marks.
Da. I must keep up the stichomythia.
Et. You see, I want a new Memorial Hall.
Da. By how constructing should I please
you best ?
Et. I come to that. I want no sky-scraper
Da. Small fear of that, since Icarus
(chokes).
Et. You egg !
You've been and gone and made me break the
line.
Da. You might have left it a hypermeter.
Et. I am not Verrall. Come ! to business !
Da. I have a plan you might perhaps approve,
Cunningly graven with a fountain-pen
Upon recording tablets. Here it is.
(Showing a map.)
The roof is made of corrugated tin,
Or barren frontages of purple slate ;
The slate extends for fifty yards or so
Unskylighted, ungabled; but each corner
Is guarded by a red-brick chimney-pot.
The walls are laid in ginger-coloured brick,
16
With windows square o'ertopped by thin red
lines
Of inward curving bricks. It's very cheap.
Chorus. Do not, O do not, most lovely Etona,
[Str.
Listen to this most unprincipled man.
Tell him to build it in glittering stone or
Brick which is red, and tones down when it
can.
Cope it with tiles like the rose of the garden,
[Antistr.
Cope it with slates which are decently gray,
Cope (if the Ritual Commission will pardon),
Cope it, O cope it, as well as you may.
(Adhuc sub judice Us est.)
July 1904.
FRAGMENTS OF GREEK POETS.
ALCAEUS.
I.
(Bergk AA 22341.)
aa-vvTr)fj,i rtav ave/j-wv
TO fjiev yap evGev Kvp,a tcvXivSerat
TO 8* evdev, a/ifte? 8" av TO
TOV TaplaV T/00/i/3(W5 KO\OVfJ,6V.
II.
OtJ/O?
III.
...otW.
III.
IV. (Pherecratic).
VO<TT11<TO/JLeV 6&)? CO).
IB
ALCMAN.
I.
Alcman in 2.45 school (Bergk 60 A).
evSovGi ae
Be
II.
Gnomic Passage.
ev \ovTpoia~i vreipdaBai
BACCHYLIDES.
<rr/3. TroXXai 8' ev avdpcoTTOKTiv vfjtvovvrai
[6eivai e
ev fipoToi? dotSd<f,
epo)v* epera? re Kal fiadv/cXeirov
a8et[y dvioya]
\7rot5'
TTOve, vucrjrav de6\o-
Kpvrop
* This quantity is hallowed by J. K. S.
19 C 2
[ov jrp~\
dfji<f)l
real Ka\elv euSat/io[va]
/ceSvov e4>r)noa-vvat<; olaKOvw^rrfpa TOV
Tlrjrco Trdpea'Tiv.
can. oil fj,dv 76 a-KDTrdv 6e\o> TO 1/5 KoXXe-
yepovs /3[ ...... ]
vijper/j,ov ev TrpaiToicriv [ ...... ] "
T' apera? epjwv r
7 WV TT] rl 6; -'-~
June 1904.
20
HIS MAJESTY'S VISIT TO ETON,
(A wholly Unofficial Programme.)
[THE King will come up the river in a barge,
attended by the MONARCH. He will land near
Sheeps Bridge, and will be met with an address
by the CAPTAIN OF THE SCHOOL : ]
PROLOGUE (The Captain of the School).
Most gracious Majesty, to you I sing,
Of England and some other places King,
Whose lofty puissance does not even quail
Before the thunders of the Daily Mail,
Welcome to this our unpretending Home
Across at least two dozen yards of foam!
[At this point the party moves on. His
Majesty is shown the site of the Battle of
WATERLOO. He will then proceed to Weston's
Yard, where he will listen to the Eton Fire
Brigade describing some home truths about
their escape to its makers.]
21
[An emblematic figure of SCHOLARSHIP will come
out of New Buildings, and recite as follows : ]
A still, small voice began to speak,
" Your accents are extremely weak ;
Were it not well to do no Greek ?
" You glibly prate of Sound and Sense,
Of Ov and Mr], of Tense and Tense,
But do you know the Difference?
" Shall he, who construes II o> as Ilax?
Or uses ~S,rvyeti> in Prose,
Boast of the Greek he thinks he knows ? "
" And yet," I urged, " the use of Moods
Will train the mind like other Foods . . "
And several meaner platitudes.
"But if," the urgent Voice replied,
" The Mind by every Work is tried,
Why not by that, which is its pride?
"Why should the Mind be fed on Greek,
When Science is the Prize we seek?
This were the wisdom of a Freak.
" Let every pupil specialize,
That each for each be onely wise ;
Profit combined with Exercise."
"True," I rejoined, "and yet I store
One shot within my locker more
Designed to lay you on the floor.
" For if the Man should take a Wife,
And live a matrimonial life,
He is the stronger in the strife.
" Yet how should he be stronger far
In Latin, Science, Algebra ?
Such subjects learnt by Women are.
" But if he know more Greek than she,
How happy shall that Husband be !
GREEK is what Women cannot see ! "
[After this interesting interlude, the party will
pass through Fourth Form Passage, and mount
the step at the end by means of the fire-escape.
In School Yard a LOYAL ODE will be sung by
choir boys artfully hidden among a Mass Meeting
of the School, to this effect : ]
Lord of our sea-girt isle,
Lord of unnumbered lands,
We hope your Majesty'll,
Excuse our slight demands.
But we who nestle at thy feet,
Have brought a few remarks thy royal ear to
greet.
23
Rich gold of splendour rare,
Clear jewel, purest gem,
You might not want to spare
We do not ask for them ;
But what on earth's a Sovereign for,
Unless he can control excursion trains by law ?
Bank-Holiday dawned fair
On May the 23rd,
A crowd of people were
Before the early bird ;
Excursion trains came pouring down,
To spend the festal day parading Eton town.
The sunset fades and dies
In leagues of purple light,
Yet still we hear their cries
Phenomenally tight,
Where'er their glowing path they take,
The echoes of the town are constantly awake.
* * *
[The cortege will then pass on into the road.]
June 1904.
OUR COMPETITION.
SIBERIA.
[Shocked at the exclusiveness with which the Hervey
Prize is limited to Etonians, we have instituted an
open competition, which has produced the following
results : many of them, strange to say, bearing all
the appearance of works by authors who have
irremeably shuffled the bourne. The Supplement.']
I. BY M. A.
. . . And from the hill where Polo wont to
roam,
With glaring eyes, and faces set on ill,
Rough customers, the dark Siberians come.
Go ! for they call thee, shepherd, from the hill.
II. BY R. B.
The yak's* in its nest,
The rock's in its flinty bed,
The tree's in its fungus band,
The ounce is in its lair :
I am out on the spree :
A fly has gone to its rest :
[* What? ? ED.]
25
The Dalai Lama's in Thibet,
So's Colonel Younghusband,
I am not quite all there
That's what's wrong with me.
III. BY R. B. OF SCOTLAND.
The sheep are coming hame, Wullie,
Along the Chinese wa',
The sheep are coming hame, Wullie,
Aboon Siberia.
Refrain
The sheep are coming hame, Wullie,
The sheep are coming hame,
We'll tak' a tick o' taiblet noo,
The sheep are coming hame.
The sheep are coming hame, Wullie,
And not a bit the waur,
The sheep are coming hame, Wullie,
Oh ! whilk a thing is war !
Refrain The sheep are coming, &c.
IV. BY P. B. S.
O beastly spawn of arch-destruction sprung,
Russia, hell-putrefied corruption-worm,
Mayest thou and that Japanic beetle-squirm,
That daedal pitmouth, both to hell be flung I
[Go it ! ED.]
26
V. BY A. T. (SOUTHERN STYLE).
Comrades, leave me here a little ! it's a habit
I have got,
Sitting down in lonely places, talking undiluted
rot.
[Exeunt comrades hastily.']
How I hate the little hollow no, I mean the
dusky street,
And the movement of the beer-drays, with the
tramp of horses' feet.
Here the lonely housewife stitches clothes which
other people wear,
Here the husband staggers home at midnight
full of pois'nous beer.
Here the child of six years old or seven, it
does not matter which,
Grovels in the loathly sewer, sees the lonely
mother stitch.
Take me somewhere east of Suez no ! I've got
it wrong again
Take me to the level reaches of the broad
Siberian plain.
27
Here my children shall be nurtured on the
rocky mountain track,
They shall hunt the white snow-leopard, they
shall ride upon the yak.
[Re-enter comrades^
VI. BY W. W. OF AMERICA.
Aliens, my friends, let us go by the New Si-
berian Railway.
We will select a carriage at present uncon-
taminated by the presence of mujiks.
I will have no one in my carriage who smokes,
or who sings "Chin Chin Chinaman" to
the tune of "Through the night of doubt
and sorrow,"
Or who uses hair-oil, or expectorates, for that is
strictly forbidden by the sanitary authorities.
Stale cadavers are the most salient point of the
scenery.
The engine puffs in an aimless sort of manner.
July 1904.
28
THE WILDERNESS.
Powers of the Bursary, who, on a cursory
Glance at the ruinous state of Schoolyard,
Made us to travel securely on gravel,
Is not that gravel a little too hard?
Does not the scenery call for some greenery ?
Call for a garden, in which we might lop
Calceolarias of suitable areas,
Worthy to rest on the bosoms of Pop ?
Oft have I wondered, and silently pondered
How I should do it, or what I should say :
Poor Henrietta, my only abettor,
Works in a wholly unpractical way ;
There, where the morning is drearily dawning,
Vainly she prods unemotional stones,
I had agreed on a Garden of Eden,
She has a weakness for Valleys of Bones.
29
Look you, where Gaffney is tending the Daphne!
Idly the pedagogues murmur and fret,
Clamouring " Tolle hoc improbum hollyhock !
Quid est absentiae cum mignonette ?
Qua/is inertia sinit nasturtia
Over the pathway profusely to grow ?
Cur pericranium pots of geranium
Incidunt semper a collegio ? "
While with disaster the stern Lower Master
Urges the fugitive footsteps of Sin,
Prickly acacias surround the embrasures
Screening the coveted vision within ;
Here where the dahlias vie with azaleas
Filling the air with profusion of bloom,
Utilitarian measures will vary an-
emone blossoms with birches and broom.
Here shall the tutors be rid of their suitors,
Here, in secure academic repose,
Cushioned in pansies give rein to their fancies,
Hammering out a fair copy for prose,
Here shall the student, of weather imprudent,
Trusting his knowledge to tell him the words,
Armed with his Scholia seek the magnolia
Where he may read Aristophanes' Birds.
November 1904.
3
GREEK TERMINOLOGY.
Whenever they speak of abolishing Greek, its
defenders employ the apology,
That a chemistry "pro." is expected to know
the details of Greek terminology ;
But why should we use the absurd P's and Q's
the pedant invented of yore ?
How sweet to the ears are the praises of Ceres,
and to speak of her daughter as Core I
No longer we smile at the mention of Phyle;
no longer the pedagogue writhes,
When we tell him of Chloe, and the volatile
Zoe, and the weird appellation of Scythes ;
But the nymph Galatea is a rhyme for the sea,
and a fleet is commanded by Chares ;
And the double address of 'Ape? "Ape? is lost
in the compromise Ares.
Why shouldn't Lalage (as a rhyme to le Sage)
be a prominent star of the ballet,
Or (if Helena marries a person called Paris)
the brother of Zetes be Calais ?
Or a process converse will perhaps intersperse
(it is purely a matter of choice)
Tollemache sage, and Descartes the mage, and
Telephone's silvery voice.
Oh, pine for the day when professors will say
that they are not admirers of Goethe,
When Aeneas parades the meadows of Hades,
and walks by the waters of Lethe,
When our tutor dilates on fidus Achates (for
the tree is discerned by its fruits),
And the brave Menelaus, and the beauty of
Glauce, and the waxing and waning of
Bootes.
December 1904.
HERACLES STAYING OUT.
SCENE : A room in Theseus 1 Palace at Athens.
HERACLES lies on a bed, uttering a heartfelt
groan (sometimes even deeper)] HIPPOLYTA,
Theseus' wife, dressed as a hospital nurse,
comes forward and speaks :
Hip. Who has not heard of famous Heracles,
Who slew three-headed Geryon and his dog,
And smote the Hydra, that Lernaean hound
[Oh dear, I never get the order right !
And yet I ought to know them all by heart :
He tells us all about them after dinner,
Hither and thither placing knives and forks,
To show the way he seared the Hydra's heads.]
(Feeling that her love of parenthesis is getting
too strong.)
Having performed twelve labours over Greece
(Which mount up if you count them to fifteen),
33 D
Then coming home to Thebes, Cadmean town,
Destroyed his infant children and his wife
Under the influence of alcohol,
Or, as he puts it, under Hera's ban.
By now, as you may guess, he had attained
A modicum of notoriety,
And for a month on end became the rage
Of all the high society in Greece.
Admetus asked him out, and Diomed,
Laertes, Peleus, all the lot of them
In fact he did himself extremely well.
(Impressively.)
That hero that was wont to conquer lions
Had made a perfect lion of himself!
(This with a vague idea that she is quoting
Shakespeare, and a consciousness that her
joke is as good as most in the tragedians.)
But ah ! the shocking sequel to my tale !
He went and got himself extremely ill,
And as you see has not recovered yet.
The Chorus now come on with the following
lucid exhortation:
Cho. Ladies of Attica, [Strophe a.
Aristocratic er
Bacchanals out on the booze,
Plying the orphical,
Anthropomorphical
Whirr of Lacaenian shoes :
34
Do not the goddesses, [Antistrophe a.
Dressed in pink bodices,
Favour our Corybant bands ?
Haste the rotatory,
Concatenatory
Junction of manifold hands !
{They pause to see if the audience has grasped
the full meaninglessness of these remarks.
THESEUS, who is in the wings waiting to come
on, mistakes the pause and thinks the Cory-
phaeus has forgotten to give him his cue. He
therefore hurries on and after an audible but
unprintable dialogue with the Coryphaeus,
addresses Heracles.}
The. Well, Heracles, how is the er chest
to-day ?
Het. As better as I hope you are not worse.
The. Ah, would to Heaven that Oedipus were
here !
Her. Do I then speak in riddles, O my friend?
The. So that I feel a headache coming on.
Hip. For mercy's sake, don't you get ill as
well !
The. (annoyed). Hippolyta, what are you doing
here?
Three different people should not talk at once.
If Aeschylus were here he would have told you.
35 02
Hip. Well, don't bring in conditions, anyhow :
You'ld better go to Sophocles for them !
Her. (soliloquizing). Of all the labours I have
toiled for Greece
None I am sure was half so bad as this.
For in a city no campaign abroad
Can be so bad as fratricidal strife :
When any city with revolt is sick,
Divided 'gainst itself, it cannot stand.
No more can I with this intestine strife.
The. Really, your metaphors are rather crude.
You call a city " sick with civil war "
(At least you do in Greek) : but when you say
" Intestine strife," you border on the coarse.
Her. Who would not, with disease in all his
joints ?
The. I don't think "joints" is quite the word
for it.
Her. Which, do you think, is being coarser
now?
(Here the Chorus, extremely useful on such
occasions, break in to prevent a slight jar.}
Cho. What a curious thing is disease ! [Str. b.
The causes so very obscure,
I am sure
I cannot think what is the cause
Of the jaws
36
Of the great Heracles
Lying idle, a thing so unusual you know !
(Heracles does not seem to take this as a
compliment.}
But sickness has brought him thus low.
(Dubiously.}
I expect it's the damp and the cold, [Ant. b.
The climate's so horrible here,
And I fear
The reaction from so many toils
Often spoils
The enjoyment of gold.
Stay ! here comes the doctor, Apollo's great son,
Asclepius ! We shall have some fun !
(With these morbid anticipations of seeing a
fellow-creature in pain, they huddle together
round their thymele. Enter ASCLEPIUS.)
Asc. Well, how's the patient getting on to-
day ?
(Sits down familiarly on Heracles' toe and rises
suddenly.)
Temperature normal, eh ?
Hip. I don't quite know.
He bit the large thermometer in two
And nearly swallowed all the mercury,
Then he made jokes on " mercury " and Hermes
Until we thought his reason must be going.
37
He then sat through the bedstead. But we sent
Post haste to Bashan: Og, unwieldy king,
Supplied us with a cast-off one of his.
Asc. (meditatively). No use ' to sing enchant-
ments over wounds
That cry for the knife.
(Just here he seems to have borrowed his words
from Sophocles and metre from Stephen
Philltps.)
You know, Hippolyta, he ought to have
A glass of my elixir every hour
And then perhaps he may pull round in time.
(As Heracles begins to describe in vivid terms
what he will be before he takes elixir, the
Chorus strikes up to drown the noise.)
Cho. O Paean, [Str. c.
Don't you see an
Opening for your thumbs ?
Apollo,
I hollow,
Mark over ! Heads ! he comes.
The. By Jove ! the god himself! Well, talk of
the
(Enter APOLLO as deus ex machina in Santos-
Dumont the MDCIV. He makes a set
speech, with furtive references to his shirt-cuff.}
Apollo. O mighty Heracles, I blame thee not,
38
Thou wilt pull through if thou hast lots to
drink !
(Heracles jumps out of bed and makes a rush
for the cellar.}
To thee, Asclepius, my learned son,
I grant the evolution of the pill.
In:o a spheroid, small and smooth and hard,
Thou shalt compress the virtue of thy balms.
And keep thy hair on, seeing Heracles
Is rather too much of a match for thee.
(Curtain,)
39
OI ENAEKA.
dpi<f>pa$e<i cvveire Mo/o-a
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* Lacunam indicaverunt ambo editores, homines bardi
atque insulsi.
40
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8' rpyeiro KOI dvSp&v
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etc
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Se fievto
2TEOANOT EIAHAON AMATPON.
1905.
41
MAGISTER REFORMATOR.
Eton, didst thou think that Canon Lyttelton
would turn a lissom
Ear to the remonstrances of silly-season
journalism ?
Editors secured themselves a holiday aegrotat
on
Weird anticipations of our icdpa TifjucaTaTov,
Hurried off to Norway or to Brighton and
its revels,
Leaving the arrangement of the matter to
the devils
Printed on to paper of uncomfortable hue,
"What, in our opinion, Canon Lyttelton
will do."
Israel, be comforted! For Joshua and Caleb
are e-
Lated by the Eshcol that is promised us from
Haileybury ;
42
Rouse thee, Dionysus! (my address will be
the better for
Making a diversion by a sudden change of
metaphor),
Still thy wonted thiasus its lustre to the
scene adds,
Lyssades and Bacchanals, and Bassarids
and Maenads,
Pop and Upper Sixpenny and Colleger
and Sap
Fatuously walking up and down in front
of Tap.
Rouse thee, gentle beagler! For thy company
familiar is
Treading on the footsteps of its black-and-tan
auxiliaries,
Rushing like the metre (which is onomato-
peical),
Riding, when affected with fatigue, upon the
vehicle.
Hail him under pseudonyms in III. division
verses,
Hail him as you hail the Royal marriages
and hearses,
Hail him like Etonians, without a single
word,
Absolutely silent and indefinitely bored.
43
May we not prognosticate prosperity illimitable,
Ev'rybody emulous and ev'ryone inimitable ?
Eton reawakened to a sense of ancient glory'll
Stimulate her memory and finish her Memorial,
Science be conservative in things of edu-
cation,
Editors be liberal in my remuneration,
Ev'ryone be satisfied and nobody repine
Underneath his ficus ordinaris and his
vine.
September 1905.
44
COLLEGE DEBATING SOCIETY.
1855-1905-
Nunc et capillos implicate frondibus,
Carnationibus togam,
Et Cantiorum vineis depromite
Quidquid voluptatis libet ;
Et corridores inter exstructa dape
Frustis et ovis laedite
Quicumque campum Westonensis areae
Calcat viator impiger.
Pannis onustus flagrat hesternis ubi
Hornisque catalogis focus,
Diffindat infinita Praesidens sua,
Absente Secretario ;
Domusque tota Tullio disertior
Interstrepat convicia,
Cum Seribusne civitatem oporteat
Scythisne foedus icere,
Aliquidne manes sint, et an Britannia
Praeceps in occasum ruat.
Hie disputemus, dumque lux electrica
Condat repentinum jubar,
Currant solutis legibus puerculi
Impune per fastigia.
October 1905.
45
INVITATION
TO THE COLLEGE DEBATING SOCIETY
JUBILEE DINNER (S. Andrew, 1905).
DEAR SIR,
The executive of College Pop
Are going, at the close of their tenth lustre
(Not to employ epistolary shop),
A buster.
On the nth ult., fifty years past
(College not sated with her mental pabu-
Lum), our debate made its enthusiast-
ic debut.
So, on S. Andrew's Day, when all is o'er,
When every spirit of the wall is weary
And keen debaters long to take the floor
(Habere
Orationem\ we would honour well
Our Jubilee. Your presence is awaited.
Without it, the affair would not be cel-
Ebrated.
46
Here you shall be regaled, and here refined,
Dissect the peach, and criticize the speeches,
Here fill the frame that labours, or the mind
That teaches.
Yours is the presence that would most enthral
Our banquet's credit, and our banquet's asset ;
Register only to a meal in Hall
Your Placet.
November 1905.
47
CIRCUMSONOR ARMIS.
[The so-called "New New Schools" have, we are glad to
say, been officially given the title of the "Warre
Schools."]
When shall Bellona sound alarms
In Common Lane no more ?
For what was once the School of Arms
Is now the Schools of Warre.
November 1905.
IN MEMORIAM R. C J.
The plays of Sophocles were incomplete
Until in JEBB they found their exegete :
Death came, alas ! too soon, and in his will
He left the Fragments only fragments still.
November 1905.
49
THE FINCH AND THE ROBIN.
(After Browning?)
Wall-game ? Od's life, I played the Wall-game
once
Sub. on a moment's notice for King's Coll.
(Which same is Tab-land, where is little wealth) ;
Donned sackcloth, well slipped o'er me to protect
From ill, stuck on a turban, such as decks
The stately Pacha, ring'd and scimitar'd,
Then sat on ball, big hold, seven men on top,
The ball stuck slick between, like one immewed
In some fine chateau near the Breton sea.
Not so : though oft I've stumbled, oft have
knelt,
Oft came a cracker, oft am cut skin-deep,
Pass'd through i' the midst I This was, I trow,
a rush :
The bully (lend us your regard, old Hodge)
Pack'd as Plethousa Agora, parts away,
So, Goals would apprehend us on our way !
5
If he but robs an inch of my career,
Shall be no sadder man in Bucks to-night !
What business had the dunce to pry around
And look as if he'd flee ? He tripped me, sir,
And I saw stars, that fell dejectedly.
So off I hobble dffravrjs ol'^o/iat
Doff my kickshaws, to Arthur imitate,
Who drowned Excalibar ("-bur, -bur!" quoth
Hodge)
Barin tune initurus going on barge.
5. Andrew's Day, 1905.
THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE.
O generous Head Master, who hast made our
clocks go faster, and our eyelids more
abundantly to dream,
And in laying down the law dost disembody all
the sawdust from the puppet of traditional
regime,
How sweet to sit at home
With an annotated tome
For him that cons the literature of Hellas
and of Rome,
With his lexicon equipped he's delighted to
prepare
The Bacchae of Euripides at leisure in a chair.
Now at last we'll break the shackles of the
Pedagogue who cackles, and like PENTHEUS
we will sally forth instead,
52
By no official gyves caught demonstrating in a
fives-court how Agave played the dickens
with his head,
We shall oscitate no more
At the construe of a bore,
With our eyes upon the ceiling and our
pencil on the floor.
No more in close Divisions shall we indolently
sit
Face to face with ebullitions of the Yelvertonic
wit.
But behold, a further vista of an ultimate
conquista, when we shall not be excited
from our beds
By the troublesome reveilles of the tufted cory-
dallis, or by Chaunticleer discoursing from
the leads,
On our pillows we shall read
Of Tiberius his deed,
And write our Sunday Questions (unintelli-
gible screed);
We shall always all be trusted to prepare our
work alone,
And the School-room key be rusted and the
benches overthrown.
53
Nay, perhaps it won't be needful to return from
home so heedful ; in our own ancestral
Lares we shall learn
All our work by correspondence, while occa-
sional abscondence would be punished by
an order to return ;
And Eton will be let
For as much as we can get,
But a remnant of the Tutors will remain in
Cloisters yet,
To conduct examinations when Collections ought
to come,
And test the lucubrations of the Pupils of the
Home.
February 1906.
54
THE JUDGMENT OF OETONE.
BY A DENIZEN.
[It is rumoured that next term every Etonian will have to
make his choice between Volunteering, Music and
Handicraft.]
Then to the bower they came ;
As to their dress, my modesty refers
The reader back to the original;
But all about their feet the prickly pear,
The pennyroyal and the marjoram,
And elecampane, and other herbs that form
The range of Classic Flora, seemed to thrive,
And violets drooped, and roses blushed to see
Their presence and their absence of attire.
Dear Mother Eton, hear me ere I die !
Then first of all I saw the God of War,
Lord of a hundred battles (though indeed
Eighty per cent were drawn, and twenty lost),
Those sparkling eyes and that ambrosial hair
Playing athwart his shoulders, like a god's.
And then he talked of War, and foughten fields,
Efficiency, and concentration camps,
And coffee-coloured tunics, lined with blue.
55
Dear Mother Eton, hear me ere I die !
So at the first I mark'd not, and at last
Mark'd little. For indeed he seemed to me
To talk like Baden-Powell, though of course
I did not like to say so : but his voice
Came to me dimly, like a gramophone
With some electioneering speech inside.
" We do not fight with bats (applause) or pads
Or picture-postcards (laughter) ; -what we need
Is soldiers trained to ride and trained to shoot,
Not little Brodricks (laughter, and applause).
In the late war in Africa (applause)
The Imperial Yeomanry (renewed applause)
The Imperial (ferment, and renewed applause)
Have shown how little England can rely
On untrained valour. And I might go on
For ages, till a stop should coincide
By some chance with the ending of a line."
Dear Mother Eton, hear me ere I die !
He ceased, and I, that long had stood amaz'd,
Held forth to him half-doubtfully the bun,
As who should thus award it ; but just then
In tones so musical as to suggest
Some half a dozen lines of simile
Apollo, darling of the Muses, spoke :
" Self-harmony, self unison, and tone,
These three alone make up self-government.
56
Music alone is Mistress, she alone
Hath power to soothe the savage beast (or
breast)
And thereby hangs the music of the spheres
The Diapason closing full in Man,
And other catchwords close akin to these
And more obscure. Plump therefore for the
Lyre;
The lyre in elections always wins."
Dear Mother Eton, hear me ere I die !
He finished, and a voice in either ear
Cried " Phoebus ! Phoebus ! " but I did not
hear,
Or hearing heard not, or unhearing heard.
Dear Mother, hear me yet before I die !
Then stepped Hephaestus from the flowering
brake,
Much limping on his crutches, slow of foot,
And round his manly breast and brawny arms,
Uncleanly hands and tangled mass of hair,
In dancing symphonies of red and green
The limelight was directed, as he moved.
Then thus he spoke and triumph'd in his
speech :
" I am the Labour Party, vote for me ! "
57
Dear Mother, hear me yet before I die !
For ere the traveller upon India's strand
Going to meet an argosy of ships
With rich and curious bales of merchandise,
And greet the long-expected friend from home
That comes from thence to stay with him, has
time
To think or say : " This is Jack Robinson,"
I gave the bun to toiling handicraft.
Those other twain went skyward and he too
Went far away, as would that he might go,
Dear Mother Eton, far away from thee.
But from that time I am a carpenter
And I shall carpenter until I leave.
March 1906.
BRICKS WITHOUT STRAW.
[The Prose Translations of the works in use for the Half
have been withdrawn from circulation in the School
Library by the Head Master's orders. E.C.C.]
O home of the erudite Muses
Where Burcher is wont to advise
The simple whose toil at their Q.'s is
Of quite disproportionate size,
With what superhuman exertions,
What infinite gain to himself,
The sinner consulted the versions
That crown your immaculate shelf!
But when the assiduo tritae
Lectore columnae of Jebb
Are suddenly swept from his sight, he
Will find his morality ebb ;
How dry are the Bohns that he quickens,
How minor the Keys he'll produce,
While Authority's playing the dickens
With the cribs of traditional use !
59
For what are your Sidgwicks and Pages,
That throw but the husks to the herd,
When Conington, prince of the sages,
Is under a bushel interred ?
What boots the professional spouter
With lexicons armed to the teeth,
While Lang in obscurity outer
Is gnashing with Butcher his teeth ?
In some inaccessible garret
Of the Head-magisterial home,
Philosophy, poetry, narrat-
ive congregate, tome upon tome ;
And there, by the owner unneeded,
Forbidden to ardent research,
Sits Brodribb remote and unheeded
And supervacaneous Church.
Arise, thou custodian lonely,
Arise, and unflinchingly say
That the books are for reference only
And NOT TO BE TAKEN AWAY :
For this is the School regulation,
And how, if the Masters transgress,
Shall we of inferior station
In patience our spirits possess ?
May 1906.
60
THE NEW NEW FLOREAT.
Sonent voces omnium
Floreat Etona,
Bonum est curriculum
Indolesque bona ;
Fundatoris memores
Concinamus, qualis
Sit Etonae species ;
Sed cum grano salis.
Donee, etc.
Stet domus Collegii
Disciplinae sedes
Donee Scholae Atrii
Saxa laedent pedes ;
Nequis Influentia
Perdometur truce,
Pleni sint laetitia
Sub benigno duce.
Donee, etc.
61
Bacchas puer noscitet,
Onerosum tomum,
Dulce foedus societ
Cum labore domum ;
Crescat mathematicis
Quantitas laboris,
Crescat cursus leporis,
Studium leporis.
Donee, etc.
Numquam pedes taedeat
Urguisse follem,
Neu repulsa collinat
Ludum contra Collem;
Sive causa studii
Color sive calyx,
Saltus sint egregii,
Et colatur salix.
Donee, etc.
Augeatur Thamesis
Remigumque coetus,
Flexus quisque fluminis,
Arbor quaeque vetus ;
Rudat gens Harrovia,
Studeat Rugbeia,
Etonenses carmina
Perlegunto mea.
Donee, etc.
62
Gaudeamus igitur
Juvenes dum simus,
Abraham reliquit Ur,
Urbe nos eximus ;
Floreat Etona, dum
Alma me tenebit,
Postque meum abitum
Floreat, florebit.
Donee, etc.
March 1906.
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