The Moving Finger writes: then, having writ,
The Product of your Scholarship and Wit
Deposit in the proper Pigeonhole--
And thank your Stars that there's an End of it!




LINES TO AN OLD FRIEND

When we're daily called to arms by continual alarms,
And the journalist unceasingly dilates
On the agitating fact that we're soon to be attacked
By the Germans, or the Russians, or the States:
When the papers all are swelling with a patriotic rage,
And are hurling a defiance or a threat,
Then I cool my martial ardour with the pacifying page
Of the _Oxford University Gazette_.

When I hanker for a statement that is practical and dry
(Being sated with sensation in excess,
With the vespertinal rumour and the matutinal lie
Which adorn the lucubrations of the Press),
Then I turn me to the columns where there's nothing to attract,
Or the interest to waken and to whet,
And I revel in a banquet of unmitigated fact
In the _Oxford University Gazette_.

When the Laureate obedient to an editor's decree