ME, for the Oxford and the Cambridge Board Awarding marks, a far from cheerful game, To Brecon, Bromsgrove, Southwold, Surbiton, And Ystrad Meurig, well-remembered name! Me, labouring thus, in summers long agone, To swell my scanty hoard, This hope would solace -- 'All things have an end: In time (methought) a train with me inside From dusty Dijon and its champaign wide To Jura's heights will crawlingly ascend: 'Then shall I haply in a dawn divine Drink coffee at Pontarlier, or some Such favoured spot, 'mid uplands drenched with dew': (BLEST be Lord Haldane's Spiritual Home And Kaiser Wilhelm and his Junker crew From Krupp to Falkenhayn!) 'And subsequently shall my breakfast make On cates Helvetian, which immortals eat, Surveying from my elevated seat The lucent levels of Lemanus' lake.' Such thoughts could cheer me: also how that I, All in the fullness of accomplished days, From Visp or Sion or perchance from Sierre Would climb the valley's unforgotten ways, And taste the fragrance of a purer air, And presently espy, Guarding the gate of some Valaisian pass, The gleaming peak, the glacier seen afar, Rising above the pine-woods (DAMN ALL WAR) -- The cliffs of Collon or the snows of Saas ... Of suchlike stuff my memories consist: Of occupations and of countries flat @3Piget@1, it irks me: and I do confess That, if it took me frequently like that, I should at last be neither more nor less Than a Pacificist, A craven void of principle and pith. Excuse my weakness: @3Feci@1 -- I have done -- It isn't chronic .... My Reports upon Such Schools as need them are enclosed herewith. |