The clouds received it, and the pathless night;
    Swift as a flame, its eager force unspent,
  We saw no limit to its daring flight;
    Only its pilot knew the way it went,
  And how it pierced the maze of flickering stars
  Straight to its goal in the red planet Mars.

  So to the entrance of that fiery gate,
    Borne by no current, driven by no breeze,
  Knowing no guide but some compelling fate,
    Bold navigators of uncharted seas,
  Courage and youth went proudly sweeping by,
  To win the unchallenged freedom of the sky.

Parliament has been occupied with many matters, from the Report of the Dardanelles Commission to the grievances of Scots bee-keepers.  The woes of Ireland have not been forgotten, and the Nationalists have been busily engaged in getting Home Rule out of cold storage.  Hitherto every attempt of the British Sisyphus to roll the Stone of Destiny up the Hill of Tara has found a couple of Irishmen at the top ready to roll it down again.  Let us hope that this time they will co-operate to install it there as the throne of a loyal and united Ireland.  Believers in the “Hidden Hand” have been on the war-path, and as a result of prolonged discussion as to the responsibility for the failure of the effort to force the Dardanelles, the House is evidently of opinion that Lord Fisher might now be let alone by foes and friends.  The idea of blaming Queen Elisabeth for the fiasco is so entirely satisfactory to all parties concerned that one wonders why the Commission couldn’t have thought of that itself.

[Illustration:  THE INFECTIOUS HORNPIPE]

Mr. Bernard Shaw, returned from his “joy-ride” at the Front, has declared that “there is no monument more enduring than brass”; the general feeling, however, is that there is a kind of brass that is beyond enduring.  Armageddon is justified since it has given him a perfectly glorious time.  He is obliged, in honesty, to state that the style of some of the buildings wrecked by the Germans was quite second rate.  He entered and emerged from the battle zone without any vulgar emotion; remaining immune from pity, sorrow, or tears.  In short: 

  He went through the fiery furnace, but never a hair was missed
  From the heels of our most colossal Arch-Super-Egotist.

According to the latest news from Sofia, 35,000 Bulgarian geese are to be allowed to go to Germany.  As in the case of the Bulgarian Fox who went to Vienna, there appears to be little likelihood that they will ever return.

[Illustration:  FOOD RESTRICTION

SCENE:  HOTEL.

LITTLE GIRL:  “Oh, Mummy!  They’ve given me a dirty plate.”

MOTHER:  “Hush, darling.  That’s the soup.”]

Apropos of food supplies, Lord Devonport has developed a sense of judicial humour, having approved a new dietary for prisoners, under which the bread ration will be cut down to 63 ounces per week, or just one ounce less than the allowance of the free and independent Englishman.  The latest morning greeting is now:  “Comment vous Devonportez-vous?”