THE BIG-GAME CURE.
[In common with everything else, wild animals have risen considerably in price.]
In other times I might have made
For those wild lands where growls the grisly,
Have tracked him (with some native aid)
And held a broken-hearted Bisley;
Now that my Maud has murmured, "Nay,"
Shrinking from matrimony's tight knot,
I might have acted thus, I say
(Contrariwise, I might not).
In any case to-day I shrink
From thus evading Sorrow's trammels;
A sense of duty bids me think
How costly are the larger mammals;
To kill them just to soothe my mind
Would seem to savour of the wasteful,
A thing all patriot poets find
Exceedingly distasteful.
Not mine the immemorial cure;
The voice of conscience warns me off it;
I'll leave the following of the spoor
To those who follow it for profit;
I feel they would not thank me for
Turning the jungle to a shambles,
Who speculate in lions or
Have elephantine gambles.
And so this poet will not roam;
Remaining on his native heath, he
Will seek an anodyne at home,
Nor look beyond the Thames for Lethe;
And if he fades away, denied
The usual balm in cardiac crises,
Say only this of him, "He died
A prey to soaring prices."
