First Prize.
“Ruin seize thee, ruthless Earl!
Confusion on thy banner fall,
Though courtly gales its silk unfurl
Above St. George’s fretted stall.
Coronet, nor Garter’s twist,
Nor e’en thy works of fiction, novelist,
Shall purge thy conscience from election fears,
From Scotia’s curse, from Scotia’s tears!”
Such were the strains of wild Homeric war