OF CERTAIN BRUTUSES WHO MISSED THEIR MARK.
["Coalition Doomed."—Poster of "Evening News."
"Coalition Death Sentence."—"Times'" Headline on Mr. Asquith at Paisley.
"Blow to the Coalition."—"Times'" Headline on Mr. Barnes's resignation.]
Have you heard of the coming of Nemesis,
How she glides through the ambient gloom
That envelops the Downing-Street premises
Where George is awaiting his doom?
For the hour of his utter discredit
Has struck and the blighter must go
If the Carmelite organs have said it
It's bound to be so.
The Cabinet's daily imbroglio
Amounts to a permanent brawl;
Mr. Barnes has resigned a portfolio
Which never existed at all;
It is true he was, anyhow, going,
Yet it serves (in The Times) for a sign
Of the symptoms, perceptibly growing,
Of George's decline.
Mr. Asquith (of Paisley) endorses
The sentence of violent death,
Though he leaves him alternative courses
For yielding his ultimate breath;
He allows him an optional charter—
To swing by his neck from a tree,
Or to perish a piteous martyr
To felo-de-se.
And what of poor Damocles under
This horror that hangs by a thread?
Does he wilt in a palsy and wonder
How soon it will sever his head?
Are his lips and his cheeks of a blank hue?
Does he toy with his victuals and drink?
Not at all; on the contrary, thankyou,
His health's in the pink.
He'll be bashed to the semblance of suet,
So say the familiars of Fate;
But they don't tell us who is to do it
Or mention the actual date;
Though the lords of the Circus assure us
His voice will be presently mute,
Yet the victim, pronounced moriturus,
Declines to salute.
All colours, from purple to yellow,
The oracles kill him in print,
But he turns not a hair, for the fellow
Is hopeless at taking a hint;
Apparently free from suspicion
And mindless of what it all means,
He careers on the road to perdition,
Ebullient with beans.
O.S.