MORE KICKS THAN HALFPENCE.

Yes, take back the sword! Though the Times may expostulate,

Tired am I wholly of worry and snubs.

You'll find, my fine friend, what your folly has cost you, late,

Henceforth for me the calm comfort of Clubs!

To lounge on a cushion and hear the balls rattle

'Midst smoke-fumes, and sips on the field of green cloth,

Is better than leading slow troops to sham battle,

In stupid conditions that rouse a man's wrath.

Commissions, they say, go a-begging. Precisely!

Incapables take them, but capables shy.

For twenty-one years you have harried us nicely.

And now, like the rest, we're on Strike, Sir. And why?

The game, you old fossil, is not worth the candle,

Your kicks for my halfpence? The bargain's too bad!

If you want bogus leaders sham soldiers to handle,

You'll now have to take duffers, deadheads, and cads!

The Times wisely says you should make it attractive,

This Volunteer business. But that's not your game.

You're actively snubby, or coldly inactive:

We pay, and you pooh-pooh! 'Tis always the same.

We do not mind giving our time and our money,

Or facing March blasts, or the floods of July;

But till nettles bear grapes, Sir, or wasps yield us honey,

You won't get snubbed men to pay up and look spry.

The "multiplication of camps and manoeuvres"?

All right! Let us learn in a soldierlike school;

But what is the good of your Bisleys and Dovers.

If the whole game resolves into playing the fool?

To play that game longer and pay for it too, Sir,

Won't suit me at all. I'm disgusted and bored.

Your kicks for my halfpence? No, no, it won't do, Sir!

And therefore, old Tapenoddle—take back the sword!