To one who to tradition clings

This seems an awkward state of things,
But if to think it out you try,
It doesn't really signify.

With them, as surely as can be,
A sailor should be sick at sea,
And not a passenger may sail
Who cannot smoke right through a gale.

A soldier (save by rarest luck)
Is always shot for showing pluck
(That is, if others can be found
With pluck enough to fire a round).

"How strange!" I said to one I saw; "You quite upset our every law. However can you get along

So systematically wrong?"

Dear me!" my mad informant said,

Have you no eyes within your head?
You sneer when you your hat should doff:
Why, we begin where you leave off!

"Your wisest men are very far

Less learned than our babies are!"
I mused awhile-and then, oh me!
I framed this brilliant repartee:

"Although your babes are wiser far
Than our most valued sages are,
Your sages, with their toys and cots,
Are duller than our idiots!"

But this remark, I grieve to state,
Came just a little bit too late;
For as I framed it in my head,
I woke and found myself in bed.

Still I could wish that, 'stead of here,
My lot were in that favoured sphere!—
Where greatest fools bear off the bell
I ought to do extremely well.

THE BISHOP OF RUM-TI-FOO AGAIN.

I

OFTEN wonder whether you

Think sometimes of that Bishop, who

From black but balmy Rum-ti-Foo

Last summer twelvemonth came.

Unto your mind I p'r'aps may bring
Remembrance of the man I sing
To-day, by simply mentioning

That PETER was his name.

Remember how that holy man
Came with the great Colonial clan
To Synod, called Pan-Anglican;
And kindly recollect

How, having crossed the ocean wide,
To please his flock all means he tried
Consistent with a proper pride
And manly self-respect.

He only, of the reverend pack
Who minister to Christians black,
Brought any useful knowledge back
To his Colonial fold.

In consequence a place I claim
For "PETER " on the scroll of Fame
(For PETER was that Bishop's name,
As I've already told).

He carried Art, he often said,
To places where that timid maid
(Save by Colonial Bishops' aid)

Could never hope to roam.
The Payne-cum-Lauri feat he taught
As he had learnt it; for he thought
The choicest fruits of Progress ought
To bless the Negro's home.

And he had other work to do,
For, while he tossed upon the Blue,
The islanders of Rum-ti-Foo

Forgot their kindly friend.

Their decent clothes they learnt to tearThey learnt to say, "I do not care," Though they, of course, were well aware How folks, who say so, end.

Some sailors, whom he did not know,
Had landed there not long ago,

And taught them "Bother!" also, "Blow!" (Of wickedness the germs).

No need to use a casuist's pen

To prove that they were merchantmen;

No sailor of the Royal N.

Would use such awful terms.

And so, when BISHOP PETER came
(That was the kindly Bishop's name),
He heard these dreadful oaths with shame,
And chid their want of dress.

(Except a shell-a bangle rare—
A feather here-a feather there-

The South Pacific Negroes wear
Their native nothingness.)