Seeing in _Henry V._ a Prussian King, Tracing in _Hamlet_ a more moody KAISER, You put new might into the master's wing, He seems more wonderful to us, and wiser; Not as he dimly sang in ages gone He warbles to us now, but wild with culture, Exchanging for the mere parochial Swan The full-mouthed war notes of the Potsdam Vulture. So shall he live, and live eternally (In humble homage to the War Lord's mitten) "This precious stone set in the silver sea," Heligoland, of course, and not Great Britain: A thousand carven saints are lain in dust In lands the Prussian Junker sets his boot on, But WILHELM SHAKSPEARE and his honoured bust Shall save themselves by being partly Teuton. And when the hooves of those imperial swine Leap, as of course they will, the ocean's borders, And England's trampled down from Thames to Tyne, And Wells is burnt, and Winchester, by orders, It may be tears shall start into the eyes Of helmed colonels in our Midland valleys, And they shall spare the tomb where SHAKSPEARE lies; He was a German (_Deutschland ueber alles_). Almost I seem to see the Uhlans stand, Paying their pious sixpences to enter That little homestead of the Fatherland That housed the dramatist in Stratford's centre; A trifle flushed, maybe, with English beer, But mutely reverent and not talking chattily, They write beneath their names: "A friend lives here; Not to be ransacked. Signed, _The Modern ATTILAE_." A glorious scene. The voice of KRUPP is dumb; Not pining now for Frankfort or for Muenich, The sub-lieutenant slides with quivering thumb A picture-postcard underneath his tunic. Till then, if any dawn of doubt creeps in How best to judge the Bard and praise him rightly, Let me implore the actors of Berlin To play _Macbeth_ to crowded houses nightly. EVOE. * * * * * THE INTERPRETERS. "May I go into the village to get my hair cut?" asked Sinclair of my wife. "I'll promise to be back for tea." Upon her assurance that Madame Mercier was lying down and was not at all likely to appear, permission was granted. We do not generally allow Sinclair to go out of the grounds at present. He is acting as the central link which makes the continuance of the social life possible to us. For I do not think that we could have undertaken (with our deplorable ignorance of French) to entertain Belgian refugees at all had he not been staying with us. As it is, it works beautifully, though Madame Mercier and her two daughters speak no English, for Sinclair's French is perfectly adequate. It was during his absence that we learned that my neighbour, Andrew Henderson, the dairy farmer, had also taken in a Belgian--a woman who was to work on the farm during the winter.