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IMPRESSIONS FROM “LIVING VERSE”

Coming down the hill .... train travellers.
That hour arrived his work begins .... student at nine.
he would talk to amuse the children .... the teachers.
Oh ye! Whose ears are dinn’d with uproar rude .... approaching masters.
Lingering like an unloved guest .... teacher at end of period.
Alone and palely loitering .... outside the office.
.
Such strength upon the blow was put .... unlucky fellow!

That has been, and may be again .... the strap.

The thick stem fits in clutching fingers .... Maths is a part of Commerce
yet have we well begun .... A piping good Maths A period.
And the weary Day turned to his rest .... 3 o’clock.
— Alan Preston (4C1).
LINES COMPOSED IN THE
DETENTION ROOM - -
In sooth, I know not why I am so bad,
Tearing up report forms to see where sits the wind.
Or innocently laughing at jovial D. J. Davis.
But my detentions are not in one professor trusted;
By chemical explosions and geographical depressions —
By mathematical weaknesses and lack of information —
“I'm the perfect model of a modern fourth-form idiot,
With information vegetable, animal and mineral.
I know the kings of England and I quote the fights historical
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical.
I’m very well acquainted too with matters mathematical
About the midpoint theorem, I’m teeming with a lot of news
I understand equasions both simple and quadratical
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.”
But how cans’t I travail all day, with many a passing distraction,
From the Janitor, to the Secretary, to the Master of Arts.
“I’m very good at integral and differential calculus;
I know the scientific names of beings animalculous
In short, in matters vegetable, animal and mineral—
I’m the very model of a modern fourth-form idiot.”
“When I can tell at sight a Mauser rifle from a javelin;
When I have learned what progress has been made in modern gunnery;
When I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery.
I’m a typical—qualified—private—cadetinary.”
“When I can tell a symphoney, from a fugue or overturery;
A piano from a harpsicord and an oboe from a piccolo,
I’m educated perfectly in matters in musicianary.
In short, I’m the very model of a modern canditatory
| In sooth, the time has flown extraordinarily,
— In extermis, I leave this common hole —
This penitentiary, for home and health.
Amenstichfits-Gilbert (4A1).
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