He gripped his beard; then closed his eyes and said, 'Bathsheba must be warned that he is dead. 'Send for her. I will be the first to tell 'This wife how her heroic husband fell.' ANCIENT HISTORY Adam, a brown old vulture in the rain, Shivered below his wind-whipped olive-trees; Huddling sharp chin on scarred and scraggy knees, He moaned and mumbled to his darkening brain; '_He was the grandest of them all--was Cain!_ 'A lion laired in the hills, that none could tire; 'Swift as a stag; a stallion of the plain, 'Hungry and fierce with deeds of huge desire.' Grimly he thought of Abel, soft and fair-- A lover with disaster in his face, And scarlet blossom twisted in bright hair. 'Afraid to fight; was murder more disgrace? ... '_God always hated Cain._' ... He bowed his head-- The gaunt wild man whose lovely sons were dead. SPORTING ACQUAINTANCES I watched old squatting Chimpanzee: he traced His painful patterns in the dirt: I saw Red-haired Ourang-Utang, whimsical-faced, Chewing a sportsman's meditative straw. I'd met them years ago, and half-forgotten They'd come to grief. (But how, I'd never heard, Poor beggars!) Still, it seemed so rude and rotten To stand and gape at them with never a word. I ventured 'Ages since we met,' and tried My candid smile of friendship. No success. One scratched his hairy thigh, while t'other sighed And glanced away. I saw they liked me less Than when, on Epsom Downs, in cloudless weather, We backed The Tetrarch and got drunk together. WHAT THE CAPTAIN SAID AT THE POINT-TO-POINT I've had a good bump round; my little horse Refused the brook first time, Then jumped it prime; And ran out at the double, But of course There's always trouble at a double: And then--I don't know how It was--he turned it up At that big, hairy fence before the plough; And some young silly pup, (I don't know which), Near as a toucher knocked me into the ditch; But we finished full of running, and quite sound: And anyhow I've had a good bump round. CINEMA HERO O, this is more than fiction! It's the truth That somehow never happened. Pay your bob, And walk straight in, abandoning To-day. (To-day's a place outside the picture-house; Forget it, and the film will do the rest.) There's nothing fine in being as large as life: The splendour starts when things begin to move And gestures grow enormous. That's the way To dramatise your dreams and play the part As you'd have done if luck had starred your face.