Volume 156 — DULCE DOMUM.

The air is full of rain and sleet, A dingy fog obscures the street; I watch the pane and wonder will The sun be shining on Boar's Hill, Rekindling on his western course The dying splendour of the gorse And kissing hands in joyous mood To primroses in Bagley Wood. I wish that when old Phoebus drops Behind yon hedgehog-haunted copse And high and bright the Northern Crown Is standing over White Horse Down I could be sitting by the fire In that my Land of Heart's Desire— A fire of fir-cones and a log And at my feet a fubsy dog In Robinwood! In Robinwood! I think the angels, if they could, Would trade their harps for railway tickets Or hang their crowns upon the thickets And walk the highways of the world Through eves of gold and dawns empearled, Could they be sure the road led on Twixt Oxford spires and Abingdon To where above twin valleys stands Boar's Hill, the best of promised lands; That at the journey's end there stood A heaven on earth like Robinwood. Heigho! The sleet still whips the pane And I must turn to work again Where the brown stout of Erin hums Through Dublin's aromatic slums And Sinn Fein youths with shifty faces Hold "Parliaments" in public places And, heaping curse on mountainous curse In unintelligible Erse, Harass with threats of war and arson Base Briton and still baser CARSON. But some day when the powers that be Demobilise the likes of me (Some seven years hence, as I infer, My actual exit will occur) Swift o'er the Irish Sea I'll fly, Yea, though each wave be mountains high, Nor pause till I descend to grab Oxford's surviving taxicab. Then "Home!" (Ah, HOME! my heart be still!) I'll say, and, when we reach Boar's Hill, I'll fill my lungs with heaven's own air And pay the cabman twice his fare, Then, looking far and looking nigh, Bare-headed and with hand on high, "Hear ye," I'll cry, "the vow I make, Familiar sprites of byre and brake, J'y suis, j'y reste. Let Bolshevicks Sweep from the Volga to the Styx; Let internecine carnage vex The gathering hosts of Poles and Czechs, And Jugo-Slavs and Tyrolese Impair the swart Italian's ease— Me for Boar's Hill! These war-worn ears Are deaf to cries for volunteers; No Samuel Browne or British warm Shall drape this svelte Apolline form Till over Cumnor's outraged top The actual shells begin to drop; Till below Youlberry's stately pines Echo the whiskered Bolshy's lines And General TROTSKY'S baggage blocks The snug bar-parlour of 'The Fox.'" ALGOL.