The Judgement of Valhalla

by Gilbert Frankau

When Haldane’s soul with Bethmann-Hollweg dined;

And no one ploughed up golf-greens, sown by Sutton,

To bed the humble tuber’s sprouting rind;

Or dashed off shorthand billets-doux in Dutton,

Or changed a blear-eyed pauper to a swell man

In six short weeks of concentrated Pelman:

Why now—sad minstrel in un-Sandoned sack-cloth—

I sing the twilight of the times I knew.

No more our glaring footlights blurr a back-cloth

Woven of misery and hung askew;