The bacon's trodden in the slush, The baccy's wet, the stove's gone wrong-- Then, purring on the morning's hush, We hear his cheerful little song. The shafts of sunrise strike his wings, Tinting them like a dragon-fly; He bows to the ghost-moon and swings, Flame-coloured, up the rosy sky. He climbs, he darts, he jibes, he luffs; Like a great bee he drones aloud; He whirls above the shrapnel puffs, And, laughing, ducks behind a cloud. He rides aloof on god-like wings, Taking no thought of wire or mud, Saps, smells or bugs--the mundane things That sour our lives and have our blood. Beneath his sky-patrolling car Toy guns their mimic thunders clap; Like crawling ants whole armies are That strive across a coloured map. The roads we trudged with feet of lead The shadows of his pinions skim; The river where we piled our dead Is but a silver thread to him. "God of the eagle-winged machine, What see you where aloft you roam?" "Eastward, _Die Schlossen von Berlin_, And West, the good white cliffs of home!" * * * * * JOURNALISTIC CANDOUR. Heading to the Stop-Press column of a Provincial Paper:-- "LATEST RAW NEWS." * * * * * "Motorcycle. Give L25 (maximum) and exquisite diamond ring (engagement broken off)."--_Motor Cycling_. No sidecar required. * * * * * "Maeterlinck, the great Austrian statesman, looked with suspicion on all kinds of suggestions of reform or agitation." _Provincial Paper._ So unlike METTERNICH, the famous Belgian bee-farmer. * * * * * "Young Baby--Wanted, homely woman to take charge of duration of war." _Wood Green Sentinel._ If she will only finish it satisfactorily--the War, we mean, not the baby--we don't mind how homely she is. * * * * * Under the heading of "Horses, Harness, &c.":-- "Offer, cheap--Horse Chestnuts, 6 to 8 feet; Scotch, 2 to 3 feet; Spruce, about 2 feet; also Privet, Lilacs, Laurels, etc." _Irish Times._ We are quite glad to see this old joke in harness again. * * * * * "Tourists are permitted to carry cameras and use them as long as they do not attempt to take fortresses." _Russian Year Book._ These 4.7 cameras are deadly things for siege work. * * * * * "Quite the tit-bit of the evening was the little interlude in the duet from 'Faust' taken by Mr. H---- as Faust and Mr. B---- P---- as Mephistopheles. 'His Satanic Majesty' sings-- "'What is your will? At once tell me. Are you afraid?'" _Accrington Observer._ Is this "My dear Tino" under another name? * * * * * THE BATTLE OF JOBEY.