The following imitation of the “Elegy” appeared in The Volunteer Record and Shooting News (London, 33, King William Street, E.C.), August 11, 1888. It was written by a well known shooting man of the London Rifle Brigade as a funeral dirge upon the last of the N.R.A. meetings on Wimbledon Common. The first meeting was held there in July, 1860.
Wimbledon—An Elegy.
July 21st, 1888.
The sound of gunfire marked the closing day
Of that last meeting on the breezy lea;
Now marksmen homeward plod their weary way,
And leave the Common they no more shall see:
For fades the latest glimmering hope from sight
That he who by ill-fate the land doth hold,
Hard by where bullets sped their rapid flight