James, I am sad, forgetting to be cold;
Does this decorum mean that we grow old?
I knew you, James, as clamorous in your bath
As porpoises that thresh the ocean-path;
Oh! as you bathed when we were happy boys,
You drowned the taps with inharmonious noise;
Above the turmoil of the lathered wave
How you would bellow ditties of the brave!
How, wilder that the sea-mew, through the foam
Whistle shrill strains that agonised your home.
In the brimmed bath you revelled; all the floor
Was swamped with spindrift; underneath the door
The maddened water gushed, while strong and high
Your piercing top-note staggered passers-by.
But now I hear the running taps alone,
A faint and melancholy monotone;
Or just a gentle swirl when sober hope
Searches the bath's profound to salve the soap.
Sadly I kick the unresponsive door;
Youth, with its blithe ablutions, is no more.
W.K.H.
* * * * *
IN A GOOD CAUSE.
Among the minor charitable organisations of London not the least admirable
and useful is the Santa Claus Home at Highgate, which the two Misses
CHARLES have been administering with such devotion and success since 1891.
Its modest aim is to keep open twenty beds for small children suffering
from hip and spinal disease, and to give them such treatment as will
prevent them becoming hopeless cripples; and this purpose hitherto has been
fulfilled no one can say exactly how, but with help not only from known
friends but mysteriously from the ravens.
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