Ye nymphs and fauns, to Bacchus dear, Your day returns, your haunt is here. And frenzy in this yelping cheer. Olympian victors' praise. Lo! even in these days The world is young. For ever down For ever wears a rainbow for a crown. And no moon wanes but some one is in love. A new soul wakes with each awakened year. Give o'er, ye chords, your music ere ye tire, Be sweetly mute, O lyre. Words soon are cold, and life is warm for ever. One half of honour is the strong endeavour, Success the other, but when both conspire Youth has her perfect crown, and age her old desire. GEORGE SANTAYANA. APRIL. APRIL, the month of sunshine flecked with showers, the month of birds and bards and buds and bowers, now youths who feel the coming of the spring, their winter garments of repentance fling; now, too, if Easter be a tardy comer, we see some sports that better suit the summer; now to the Queen's Club in successive surges from every quarter, lo, a crowd converges. . . . What care have they, although their forms they jam in a perspiring crowd, if they can talk of stamina, note every athlete's form, his length of stride, foretell the odd event and much beside, and quite forgetful of the hours that pass know each recorded time on path or grass? ¶ And oh, ye men of dark blue or of light blue (whiche'er ye wear be sure it is the right blue); ye distance men, ye hurdlers and ye sprinters, of pluck unsparing and of pace no stinters, ye who with arms outstretched or fingers grounded, started like greyhounds when the pistol sounded; ye jumpers who with all your young limbs twisted leaped at the bar and either struck or missed it; or sped as by an impulse of despair, flew like winged figures through the whistling air, and with your eyes agleam, your chests expanded, cleared twenty feet or more before you landed, ye men of spikes, in short, whom Fame pursues garbed in your full or in your semi-blues, take it from me, ye much-enduring boys, that life can bring you no superber joys than when, released from tutors and from deans, you swiftly run or greatly jump at Queen's. Now sixteen youngsters in their pride of muscle prepare at Putney for a fearful tussle. Two puny tyrants of the coxswain tribe whom threats deter not nor caresses bribe, hold in their hands, those ruthless hands, the fate, each, as he steers it, of his labouring eight. Through the long weeks these men must meekly train, their style as pretty as their food is plain. Primed with small beer and filled with prunes and rices, they tempt each day the waves of Cam or Isis. Eggs they may eat, but not the tasty rasher, who to Clayhithe proceed or to the Lasher, and tarts and jam and entrées are taboo to those who daily row in either crew. ¶ Their dinner courses are but few and short; long are their courses of another sort, the sort, I mean, that makes them puff and blow, their faces purple, as they swing and row, while on the bank that pitiless discarder, their coach, shouts, "Now then, let her have it harder!" Lost to the world with growing grief and pain, in one last burst their very souls they strain, till with quick strokes and breath both quick and wheezy, at last they stop, the coxswain calling, "Easy!" ¶ Transferred to Putney, with their blues awarded, they see their deeds at greater length recorded. The daily papers all describe the crews in full detail and all take different views, and oarsmen, whose tense nerves grow daily tighter purchase the paper and deride the writer. Down Putney's High Street in their coloured coats behold them stride to man their brittle boats. Gathered in crowds, with unconcealed delight the Putney urchins hail the glorious sight, salute the haughty oarsmen and with glee cheer for their favourite University. "Kimebridge," for instance, they declare a winner, Oxford per contra being dubbed a "sinner "; beg them with alternating praise and scoff either to "keep it on" or "tike it off," and try in vain by every urchin's trick to win a smile, or, failing that, a kick. But the proud Blues, self-centred and serene, move irresponsive through the bustling scene, launch their light ship and take their places in it, race the scratch eights at forty to the minute, return and dress and dine, play pool and creep each to his bed for nine good hours of sleep. ¶ At last, while crowd to crowd responsive roars, the boats race by, a gleam of feathered Far in advance the very air is humming with shouts of "Now they 've started! Now they're coming!" Eight tortured oarsmen straining for the lead whom eight more strong or fortunate precede; two arrow-ships for racing well designed; four steamers lumbering tardily oars. behind, a shout, a flash — the vision disappears, and that is all one either sees or hears. Fill then the wine-cup and, with sparkling eyes, drink to the race and all that it implies! Let whoso will pursue for sordid pelf some petty object, thinking but of self. These men endured, like brother joined to brother, each for his club and all for one another, intent to be through every change of weather, not eight mere units, but a crew together! R. C. LEHMANN. LINES TO A GOLF BALL. BEFORE A MATCH. LITTLE Sphere from out the tissue peeping, Soon your glossy surface geometric Can I guide you past the perils lurking |