MARIANA IN WAR-TIME.
This tedious and important War
Has altered much that went before,
But did you hear about the change
At Mariana's Moated Grange?
You all of you will recollect
The gross condition of neglect
In which the place appeared to be,
And Mariana's apathy,
Her idleness, her want of tone,
Her—well, her absence of backbone.
Her relatives, no doubt, had tried
To single out the brighter side,
Had scolded her about the moss
And only made her extra cross.
But when the War had really come
At once the place began to hum,
And Mariana's, bless her heart!
She threw herself into the part
Of cooking for the V.A.D.
And wholly lost her lethargy.
She sent her gardeners off pell-mell
(They hadn't kept the gardens well),
And got a lady-gardener in
Who didn't cost her half the tin,
And who, before she'd been a day,
Had scraped the blackest moss away.
She put a jolly little boat
For wounded soldiers on the moat;
Her relatives were bound to own
How practical the girl had grown.
She often said, "I feel more cheery,
I doubt if I can stick this dreary
Old grange again when peace is rife;
You really couldn't call it life."
But something infinitely more
Than just a European War
Would have been requisite to part
Romance from Mariana's heart;
Once more she felt within her stir
The dawn of une affaire de coeur;
In other words, I must confess
She found her thoughts were centred less
On that young man who never came
And more on Captain What's-his-name,
Who'd left his other leg in France
And was a model of romance.
The wedding was a pretty thing;
I sent the "Idylls of the King,"
Well bound. And Mariana wrote
A most appreciative note.
They live in London now, I'm told;
The Moated Grange is let (or sold);
I only hope they'll manage so
That TENNYSON need never know.