The boats are of their crews bereft; The parks are given up to training; The scanty hundreds who are left All at the leash are straining. And grave professors, making light Of all the load of _anno domini_, Devote the day to drill, the night To CLAUSEWITZ and JOMINI. While those who feel too old to fight Full nobly with the pen are serving To weld conflicting views of right In one resolve unswerving. No more can essayists inveigh Against the youth of Oxford, slighting Her "young barbarians all at play," When nine in ten are fighting, And some, the goodliest and the best, Beloved of comrades and commanders, Have passed untimely to their rest Upon the plains of FLANDERS. No; when two thousand of her sons Are mustered under Freedom's banner, None can declaim--except the Huns-- Against the Oxford manner. For lo! amid her spires and streams, The lure of cloistered ease forsaking, The dreamer, noble in her dreams, Is nobler in her waking. * * * * * "Lest we forget." In these days, when we have to be thankful that our country has not, like Belgium and France, been overrun by savages, the greater mercies we receive are apt to obscure the less. But Swansea does not forget the smaller mercies. According to a recent issue of _The South Wales Daily Post_, "The Swansea Town F.C. are coming for the second time to St. Nicholas' Church, Gloucester Place, Swansea, on Sunday evening next, at 6.30, when the directors, committee and the two full teams have promised to attend the service, that, in the words of the Rev. PERCY WESTON, will be in the nature of a "thanksgiving service for their good fortune against Newcastle United"." Our compliments to the Rev. PERCY WESTON, pastor of this pious and patriot flock. * * * * * WHAT I DEDUCED. BY A GERMAN GOVERNESS. [Extracts from a book which is, no doubt, having as large a sale in Germany as _What I Found Out_, by an English Governess, is having in this country.] I shall never forget my arrival at the house of my new employers. Into the circumstances which forced me to earn my living as a governess in a strange country I need not now go. Sufficient that I had obtained a situation in the house of a Mr. Brigsworth, an Englishman of high position living in one of the most fashionable suburbs of London. "Chez Nous," The Grove, Cricklewood, was the address of my new home, and thither on that memorable afternoon I wended my way. "The master and mistress are out," said the maid. "Perhaps you would like to go straight to the nursery and see the children?" "Thank you," I said, and followed her upstairs. Little did I imagine the amazing scene which was to follow!