Ah, well, good-bye to you, dear old friend, the river won't seem the same

When another stands in the well-known place, and is called by another name.

Here on the banks of the sluggish Cam the best of your life was passed,

And I know when your strength was well-nigh spent your thoughts turned here at the last. Loyal and staunch as a man should be, with the heart of a little child,

After weary months when the summons came you folded your hands and smiled.

And I think that the Angel of Mercy who stands on the topmost hill

Will stretch a hand, for he knows men's hearts, to our dear old boatman Bill.

R. C. LEHMANN.

IS FOOTBALL PLAYING?

"Is football playing

Along the river shore,
With lads to chase the leather,
Now I stand up no more?”

Ay, the ball is flying,

The lads play heart and soul;
The goal stands up, the keeper
Stands up to keep the goal.

ALFRED EDWARD HOUSMAN.

SMITH OF MAUDLIN.

My chums will burn their India weeds
The very night I pass away,
And cloud-propelling puff and puff

As white the thin smoke melts away;
Then Jones of Wadham, eyes half-closed,
Rubbing the ten hairs on his chin,
Will say "This very pipe I use

Was poor old Smith's of Maudlin."

The boats are out! - the arrowy rush,

The mad bull's jerk, the tiger's strength; The Balliol men have wopped the Queen's — Hurrah! but only by a length.

Dig on, ye muffs, ye cripples, dig!

Pull blind, till crimson sweats the skin; The man who bobs and steers cries, "Oh, For plucky Smith of Maudlin!"

But all this time beneath the sheet

I shall lie still, and free from pain,
Hearing the bed-makers sluff in

To gossip round the blinded pane;
Try on my rings, sniff up my scent,
Feel in my pockets for my tin;
While one hag says, "We all must die,
Just like this Smith of Maudlin."

WALTER THORNBURY,

GOLFING BY THE FIRE.

ERE yet the evening lights are lit,
When you beside the fender sit,
And all the dusking house is still,
Then give to Memory her will,
And with her buoyant backward go

To those dead days, a radiant span,
Shaped for the merriment of man,
Before the links were sown with snow!

How could a golfer's thews but thrive
From day-long brassie-stroke and drive?
Two hundred yards — an added score !
Ah, how the smitten ball did soar!
And then, and then, was ever seen

Of skill a subtler showing made, Since golfer at St. Andrew's played? "Dead" by the hole upon the green!

Thus o'er and o'er your prowess some
Portentous hazard will o'ercome;
From desperate, deep-sunken "lies "
As though by magic you will rise;
And when at last you count the score,
Although you foozle at the start,
How you will thrill with pride at heart
To always be one up -

or more!

CLINTON SCOLLARD.

TO AN ATHLETE DYING YOUNG.

THE time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,

And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,

And silence sounds no worse than cheers

After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout

Of lads that wore their honours out,

Runners whom Renown outran

And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls

The garland briefer than a girl's.

ALFRED EDWARD HOUSMAN.