DEATH IN JUNE
FOR CRICKETERS ONLY
June is the month of Suicides
Why do we slay ourselves in June,
When life, if ever, seems so sweet?
When “Moon,” and “tune,” and “afternoon,”
And other happy rhymes we meet,
When strawberries are coming soon?
Why do we do it?’ you repeat!
Ah, careless butterfly, to thee
The strawberry seems passing good;
And sweet, on Music’s wings, to flee
Amid the waltzing multitude,
And revel late—perchance till three—
For Love is monarch of thy mood!
Alas! to us no solace shows
For sorrows we endure—at Lord’s,
When Oxford’s bowling always goes
For ‘fours,’ for ever to the cords—
Or more, perhaps, with ‘overthrows’;—
These things can pierce the heart like swords!
And thus it is though woods are green,
Though mayflies down the Test are rolling,
Though sweet, the silver showers between,
The finches sing in strains consoling,
We cut our throats for very spleen,
And very shame of Oxford’s bowling!
TO CORRESPONDENTS
My Postman, though I fear thy tread,
And tremble as thy foot draws nearer,
’Tis not the Christmas Dun I dread,
My mortal foe is much severer,—
The Unknown Correspondent, who,
With undefatigable pen,
And nothing in the world to do,
Perplexes literary men.
From Pentecost and Ponder’s End
They write: from Deal, and from Dacotah,
The people of the Shetlands send
No inconsiderable quota;
They write for autographs; in vain,
In vain does Phyllis write, and Flora,
They write that Allan Quatermain
Is not at all the book for Brora.