Illustration: _First Territorial._ "WELL, WHAT DO YOU THINK OF OUR MANOEUVRES, BILL?" _Second Territorial (hitherto unacquainted with field-days)._ "THANK 'EVIN WE'VE GOT A NIVY!" * * * * * BELOW THE WEIR. Beyond the punt the swallows go Like blue-black arrows to and fro, Now stooping where the rushes grow, Now flashing o'er a shallow; And overhead in blue and white High Spring and Summer hold delight; "All right!" the black-cap calls, "All right!" His mate says from the sallow. O dancing stream, O diamond day, O charm of lilac-time and May. O whispering meadows green and gay, O fair things past believing! Could but the world stand still, stand still When over wood and stream and hill This morn's eternal miracle The rosy Hours are weaving! Eternal, for I like to think That mayflowers, crimson, white and pink, When I am dust the boughs shall prink, On days to live and die for; That sun and cloud, as now, shall veer, And streams run tumbling off the weir, Where still the mottled trout rolls clear For other men to try for. I like to think, when I shall go To this essential dust, that so I yet may share in flowers that blow, And with such brave sights mingle, If tossed by summer breeze on high I'm carried where the cuckoos cry And dropped beside old Thames to lie A sand-grain on a shingle. Meanwhile the swallows flash and skim Like blue-black arrows notched and trim, And splendid kingcups lift a brim Of gold to king or peasant, And 'neath a sky of blue and white High Spring with Summer weaves delight; "All right!" the black-cap calls, "all right!" And life is very pleasant. * * * * * THE LANGUAGE OF COLOUR. "My dear Clarice," I said, "I may say, in the circumstances, my very dear Clarice, I like being engaged--to you, that is; no, I've never been engaged before--but I don't see the sense of getting married. Even the State seems to deride the idea of our union." "What do you mean?" said Clarice. "I'm almost alarmed. Have they discovered that you suffered from toothache as a boy?" "It isn't," I said, "a question of eugenics. I was at Somerset House to-day getting a copy of my birth certificate, and----" "They surely didn't say anything about our engagement at Somerset House. I didn't suppose they even knew of it," said Clarice. "Ill news travels apace," I said. "But that by the way. I was about to say that red is a noble colour. It is a bold, a striking colour. A day on which a great event occurs is called 'a red letter day.' Black, on the other hand, may mean nothing, or it may denote sadness." "Why this going off at a tangent?" said Clarice. "Why this dissertation on colours?"