And stone and marble may be sold Which serve no present daily need; There’s Edward’s Windsor, labelled old, And Wolsey’s palace, guaranteed. St. Clement Danes and fifty fanes, The Tower and the Temple grounds; How much for these? Just price them, please, In British pounds. You hucksters, have you still to learn, The things which money will not buy? Can you not read that, cold and stern As we may be, there still does lie Deep in our hearts a hungry love For what concerns our island story? We sell our work—perchance our lives, But not our glory. Go barter to the knacker’s yard The steed that has outlived its time! Send hungry to the pauper ward The man who served you in his prime! But when you touch the Nation’s store, Be broad your mind and tight your grip. Take heed! And bring us back once more Our Nelson’s ship. And if no mooring can be found In all our harbours near or far, Then tow the old three-decker round To where the deep-sea soundings are; There, with her pennon flying clear, And with her ensign lashed peak high, Sink her a thousand fathoms sheer. There let her lie! THE FARNSHIRE CUP Christopher Davis was up upon Mavis And Sammy MacGregor on Flo, Jo Chauncy rode Spider, the rankest outsider, But _he’d_ make a wooden horse go. There was Robin and Leah and Boadicea, And Chesterfield’s Son of the Sea; And Irish Nuneaton, who never was beaten, They backed her at seven to three. The course was the devil! A start on the level, And then a stiff breather uphill; A bank at the top with a four-foot drop, And a bullfinch down by the mill. A stretch of straight from the Whittlesea gate, Then up and down and up; And the mounts that stay through Farnshire clay May bid for the Farnshire Cup. The tipsters were touting, the bookies were shouting ‘Bar one, bar one, bar one!’ With a glint and a glimmer of silken shimmer The field shone bright in the sun, When Farmer Brown came riding down: ‘I hain’t much time to spare, But I’ve entered her name, so I’ll play out the game, On the back o’ my old gray mare. ‘You never would think ’er a thoroughbred clinker, There’s never a judge that would; Each leg be’ind ’as a splint, you’ll find, And the fore are none too good. She roars a bit, and she don’t look fit, She’s moulted ’alf ’er ’air; But—’ He smiled in a way that seemed to say, That he knew that old gray mare. And the bookies laughed and the bookies chaffed, ‘Who backs the mare?’ cried they. ‘A hundred to one!’ ‘It’s done—and done!’ ‘We’ll take that price all day.’ ‘What if the mare is shedding hair! What if her eye is wild! We read her worth and her pedigree birth In the smile that her owner smiled.’