["It is impossible to visit any part of the country without realising the fact that the long-discredited game of Croquet is fast coming into vogue again.... This is partly owing to the abolition of 'tight croqueting.'"—Pall Mall Gazette.]
Eh? What? Why? How?
Are we back in the Sixties again?
I am rubbing my eyes—is it then, or now?
I'm a Rip van Winkle, it's plain!
Hoop, Ball, Stick, Cage?
Eh, fetch them all out once more?
Why, look, they're begrimed and cracked with age,
And their playing days are o'er!
Well—yes—here goes
For a primitive chaste delight!
Let us soberly, solemnly beat our foes,
For Croquet's no longer "tight"!
ODE FOR THE MARRIAGE SEASON.
II.
"If any of you know
Cause or impediment."—
Cause! I should think I do,
That girl to wed I meant!
She made me drink the cup
Of woe, well-shaken up
With bitter sediment.
If I forbid the banns
With visage pallid,
Ere she's another man's,
And I have rallied,
Because in bygone days
With me she dallied,
Would my forbidding phrase
Be counted valid?
Because her eyes would shine
Once when I praised her,
Because her heart to mine,
When I upraised her
From the low garden chair,
Beat for a moment's space
With sudden, yielding grace
While I just kiss'd her hair,
Which nought amazed her;
Soothed her with loving touch,
Loving, but not too much,
When on her little hand
The buckle of her band
Had lightly grazed her?