Here is a perfect lyric I have written. It is called, quite simply, _Evening_:-- Sunshine in the forest, Blossom on the tree, And all the brave birds singing For you--and me. Kisses in the sunshine, Laughter in the dew, And all the brave world singing For me--and you. I see now that the dew has got into the second verse, so it had better be called quite simply “The Dawn.” You notice the artistic parallelism of this lyric; I mean, “The brave birds singing” in one verse and “The brave _world_ singing” in the next, That is a tip I got from Hebrew poetry, especially the Psalms: “One day telleth another; and one night certifieth another,” and so on. It is a useful trick to remember, and is employed freely by many modern writers, the author of “The King’s Regulations,” for example, who in Regulation 1680 has the fine line:-- “Disembarkations are carried out in a similar manner to embarkations.” That goes well to the Chant in C major by Mr. P. Humphreys. But I am wandering. It is becoming clear to me now that I shall not have time to do Blank Verse or Hymns (Ancient and Modern) in this lecture, after all, so I will give you a rough outline of that special kind of lyric, the Topical Song. All that is required for this class of work is a good refrain or central idea; when you have got that, you see how many topics you can tack on to it. But if you can tack on Mr. Winston Churchill you need not bother about the others. Our central idea will be “Rations,” and the song will be called “Heaps and Heaps”:-- Now Jimmy Brown (always begin like that) Now Jimmy Brown He went to town, But all the people said, “We’re rationed in our jam, you know, Likewise our cheese and bread; But we’ve lot of politicians And Ministers galore, We’ve got enough of them and, gee! We don’t want any more.” _Chorus._ We’ve had heaps and heaps and heaps of Mr. SMILLIE (Loud cheers); We’ve had heaps and heaps and heaps of our M.P. (Significant chuckles); At political carouses We’ve had heaps of (paper) houses But though we WAIT, no houses do we SEE (Bitter laughter). The khaki-boys were good enough for fighting, But now we hear the khaki-coat is barred; If they ration us in Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL, Why, anyone may have my ration-card! (Uproar.) All you have to do now is to work in some more topics. I don’t think I shall do any more now. The truth is, that that verse has rather taken it out of me. I feel all barren. The Book of Jonah (_As almost any modern Irishman would have written it_)