Volume 153 — ZEPP-FLIGHTING IN THE HAUTES ALPES.

Recall, dear John, a certain day Back in the times of long ago— A stuffy old estaminet Under the great peaks fledged with snow; The Spring that set our hearts rejoicing As up the serried mountains' bar We climbed our tortuous way Rolls-Roycing From Gap to Col Bayard. Little we dreamed, though that high air Quickens imagination's flight, What monstrous bird and very rare Would in these parts some day alight; How, like a roc of Arab fable, A Zepp en route from London town, Trying to find its German stable, Would here come blundering down. The swallows—you remember? yes?— Northward, just then, were heading straight; No hint they dropped by which to guess That other fowl's erratic fate; An inner sense supplied their vision; Not one of them contused his scalp Or lost his feathers in collision Bumping against an Alp. But they, the Zepp-birds, flopped and barged From Lunéville to Valescure (Where we of old have often charged The bunkers of the Côte d'Azur); And half a brace—so strange and far a Course to the South it had to shape— Is still expected in Sahara Or possibly the Cape. In happier autumns you and I (You by your art and I by luck) Have pulled the pheasant off the sky Or flogged to death the flighting duck; But never yet—how few the chances Of pouching so superb a swag— Have we achieved a feat like France's Immortal gas-bag bag. O.S.