February

['Really, there must be something rather fine in the English character that enables it to triumph over the English climate.'--The Pall Mall Gazette.]

I gaze each morning through my rainswept casement, Into the murky, mud-bound street below; I grimly note the slush that floods the basement, The hail, the sleet--and oh! I feel that I am greater than I know! Only a demigod could thrive 'Mid such surroundings drear; Only a hero could survive In such an atmosphere!

Each day the sullen sky becomes more leaden, The weather grows less suited to a dog; Each night damp mists arise, to chill and deaden! (The golf-course is a bog: Twice has my ball been stymied by a frog!) Still sweetly in my bosom wakes The knowledge nought can mar, That 'tis our island climate makes Us Britons what we are!

For if we basked in fragrant, warm oases, We should not wear that air of self-control Which, round about our placid British faces, Shines like an aureole, Expressing true stolidity of soul. To chill and gloom, to frost and thaw, Our country owes to-day The dogged jaw of Bonar Law, The eye of Edward Grey!

O Mother England, wettest of wet nurses, Where would a poet be without your clime, Which gives him such a subject for his verses, Supplying (ev'ry time) A reason for his undistinguished rhyme? His lesson may be sharp and stern, His anguish keen and long; But so in sniffing he may learn What he expounds in song!