One day last week, it might be Wed-
nesday, or even Friday,
A day not yet entirely dead,
A shortly-doomed-to-die day,
The Naiad who lay stretched in dream
Awoke and gave a shiver--
The Naiad who has charge of stream
And rivulet and river.
I had intended to write the whole of this article in verse, of which
the above is a shocking sample, but, on the whole, I think I will go
on in prose. When you have committed yourself to double rhymes, prose
is the easier medium. In verse it is more difficult to stick to your
subject, and as the subject in this case is a very important one and
deserves to be stuck to, I shall do the rest in prose.
Anyhow, the fact is that I have read a paragraph in one of the papers
about a proposed revival of rowing. Rowing, like other sports, has,
it seems, lain dormant for the past four years and a half. From the
moment in 1914 when war was declared it suffered a land-change;
shorts and zephyr and blazer and sweater were abandoned at once, and,
for the oarsman as for everybody else, khaki became the only wear.
Already trained by long discipline to obey, our oarsmen trooped to
the colours, and wherever hard fighting was to be done their shining
names are to be found on the muster-roll of fame.
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