"WHO SAID—'ATROCITIES'?"
Or, "There's Life in the Old Dog Yet."
["It was my fate, my fortune, about, I think, eighteen years ago to take an active part with regard to other outrages, which first came up in the shape of rumour, but were afterwards well verified, in Bulgaria.... Old as I am, my feelings have not been deadened in regard to matters of such a dreadful description."—Mr. Gladstone's Birthday Speech at Hawarden, December 29, 1894, on the alleged Armenian Atrocities.]
Retirement? Oh, rubbish! Tykes currish or cubbish
May curl up in kennels, or snug up in straw,
But dogs of right mettle to rest will not settle,
While sight's in the eye, and while snap's in the jaw.
A bed in a basket? Mere mongrels may ask it.
A couch and a cushion? They're lap-dog delights.
But pluck and true breeding, such comforts unheeding,
Desert laps and hearth-rugs for frolics and fights.
Retired! How rats chortle! Like "Rab" the immortal
This dog scorns dull rest, and is still "rough on rats."
As always delighting in "plenty o' fechting,"
He pricks up his ears at a whisper of "s-s-scats!"
Aslumber and dreaming? Oh, that is mere seeming,
Curled up tail to muzzle in cosiest sort.
His hairs are a-bristle at whisper or whistle
That gives the least promise of scrimmage or sport.
On rats he's still ruthless! They may think him toothless,
Those red Turkish rodents who once felt his fangs.
Ah! eighteen years earlier his coat was much curlier,
Now white and whispy sparse-scattered it hangs.
But years though they roughen his hide, seem to toughen
The muscles and nerves of this rare sporting tyke.
The rattling old ratter is still game to scatter
A pitful of vermin, of what breed you like.
The Istamboul sort are his favourite sport,
Rabid rodents who raven, red-fanged, in foul hordes,
Turco sewer-bred legions, who earth's fairest regions
Would ravage like Tamerlane's Tartar-swung swords.
Terrors untameable, horrors unnameable,
Mark their maraudings and hang on their track.
Now in fresh numbers they swarm, whilst he slumbers
Who once was the plague of the pestilent pack.
But—Who said—Atrocities? Old animosities
Wake in his spirit and stir in his blood.
Eh? What? Retirement? Nay, not if requirement,
Or prospect of sport, move the old champion's mood.
His heart has not deadened; his old eyes have reddened
With love of the fray and the old righteous wrath.
The varmint old ratter his old foes would scatter.
"Auld Rab" once again will be on the war-path!