Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 153, November 14, 1917 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 44 pages of information about Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 153, November 14, 1917.

Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 153, November 14, 1917 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 44 pages of information about Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 153, November 14, 1917.

  How strange a spectacle of human passions
    Is yours all day beside the Arras road,
  What mournful men concerned about their rations
    When here at eve the limbers leave their load,
  What twilight blasphemy, what horses’ feet
      Entangled with the meat,
  What sudden hush when that machine-gun sweeps,
    And—­flat as possible for men so round—­
  The Quartermasters may be seen in heaps,
    While you sit still and chuckle, I’ll be bound!

  Here all men halt awhile and tell their rumours;
    Here the young runners come to cull your tales,
  How Generals talked with you, in splendid humours,
    And how the Worcestershires have gone to Wales;
  Up yonder trench each lineward regiment swings,
      Saying some shocking things;
  And here at dark sad diggers stand in hordes
    Waiting the late elusive Engineer,
  While glowing pipes illume yon notice-boards,
    That say, “No LIGHTS.  YOU MUST NOT LOITER HERE.”

  And you sit ruminant and take no action,
    But daylong watch the aeroplanes at play,
  Or contemplate with secret satisfaction
    Your fellow-men proceeding towards the fray;
  Your sole solicitude when men report
      There is a shovel short,
  Or, numbering jealously your rusty store,
    Some mouldering rocket, some wet bomb you miss
  That was reserved for some ensuing war,
    But on no grounds to be employed in this.

  For Colonels flatter you, most firm of warders,
    For sandbags suppliant, and do no good,
  And high Staff officers and priests in orders
    In vain beleaguer you for bits of wood,
  While I, who have nor signature nor chit,
      But badly want a bit,
  I only talk to you of these high themes,
    Nor stoop to join the sycophantic choir,
  Seeing (I trust) my wicked batman, Jeames,
    Has meanwhile pinched enough to light my fire.

  A.P.H.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Lady (looking out of train on to darkened platform).  “PORTER, IS THIS EDGWARE ROAD?  I CAN’T SEE A THING.”

Porter (with Irish blood in her).  “NOT YET, M’M.  EDGWARE ROAD’S THE STATION BEFORE YOU GETS TO BAKER STHEET.”]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(BY MR. PUNCH’S STAFF OF LEARNED CLERKS.)

“In a few days,” says the puff preliminary of The Coming (CHATTO AND WINDUS), “you and all your friends will be reading and discussing this most strange and prophetic novel.”  Perhaps.  But what we shall be saying about it depends largely, I suppose, upon our definition of the term prophetic; also a little upon our feeling with regard to good taste and the permissible in fiction.  My own contribution will be a sincere regret that a writer as gifted as Mr. J.C.  SNAITH should have attempted the obviously impossible.  His theme,

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Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 153, November 14, 1917 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.