Which is, perchance, the reason why my mind Turns oft to those dear days, now dead as mutton; When Haldane’s soul with Bethmann-Hollweg dined; And no one ploughed up golf-greens, sown by Sutton, To bed the humble tuber’s sprouting rind; Or dashed off shorthand _billets-doux_ in Dutton, Or changed a blear-eyed pauper to a swell man In six short weeks of concentrated Pelman: Why now--sad minstrel in un-Sandoned sack-cloth-- I sing the twilight of the times I knew. No more our glaring footlights blurr a back-cloth Woven of misery and hung askew; For Time, stern judge of Us, has donned his black cloth, And to the Mob delivered up the Few ... Unless, of course, the Mob’s but swapped its Peers For a worse dynasty--of profiteers. God knows, _we_ had our faults--greed, blindness, pride. God also knows we had a dashed good time. Were they the worse for that--our boys who died, By earth and air and sea in every clime? God knows! But if ghost-feet still strut and side About their clubs, if ghost-eyes read this rhyme, I think they’d like their vanished epoch’s swan-song To be a merry tune, and not a wan song. So clear the stage, and ring the curtain up! Once more--ere Empires yield to Leagues of Nations, And bayonets to Socialistic gup-- Let Beauty, in diaphanous creations, Ogle the stalls, and subsequently sup Off iced champagne and ortolan collations.... Whereafter, if my pen won’t bring me pelf, Damned if I don’t turn Socialist myself! III. _Sets forth, despite the Law’s dull interference, A lady’s birth, age, family, and appearance._ Arms have I sung full oft, both steel and white ones; Guns have I sung till I can sing no more; Men have I sung, both common and polite ones: Yet never sang _one_ heroine before. Come, then, my ghost-girls, dark, fair, plump, and slight ones, Come in the finest, flimsiest frocks ye wore.... Alas, not one of you quite fills the bill-- A life-size model for my Lady Jill. Pardon, then, Magda, Gladys, Nancy, Florence, Doris, Patricia, Mollie, Celandine, Nor hold your erstwhile suitor in abhorrence Because, from one, he takes eyes subtly green; From other, hands a Sargent or a Lawrence Had envied for his canvas; here, the sheen Of gold hair, auburn-shot, in whose abundance, What time Jill dreamed, young Cupids watched the sun dance;