One needs over sea to go.

“A word flies fleet on the lightning’s feet,

And ’twere best without ‘mission’ or fuss;

Let the wire give hints to the broker-Prince

To square the advancing Russ.”

But the scribe look’d up from his newspapèr,

And a white-faced scribe was he;

“Too late may a man be, dear my lord,

Though he wait not to cross the sea.

“For the foot of a Fate that is bent on war