In fashion reflective, with plaint or invective, We view in perspective the year in eclipse, The duties neglected, the faults uncorrected, The blunders, the failures, the slips! We note with depression that painful procession Of lapse and transgression which held us in thrall, The sins of omission, the vaulting ambition, The pride that preceded each fall! Regretful, alas! we are loth to remember The good resolutions we made last December! The keen politicians who cherished ambitions To better conditions for sons of the State, Make private confession of wasting each session In fruitless and futile debate; The Peer of position regards with contrition That past inanition, so hard to resist; The social reformer grows sensibly warmer, To note opportunities miss'd; While Cabinet statesmen still seek (somewhat sadly) For patience to suffer the Suffragettes gladly! But never despairing, each mind, greatly daring, Fresh programmes preparing, fresh projects revolves; New plans undertaking, new promises making, New plots, new designs, new resolves! With hopes unabated, and spirits elated, We feel ourselves fated, this year, to succeed, Devising and dreaming, suggesting and scheming To triumph, to conquer, to lead! With hearts that are wiser (though probably sadder), We start once again at the foot of the ladder! FEBRUARY ['Really, there must be something rather fine in the English character that enables it to triumph over the English climate.'--The _Pall Mall Gazette_.] [Illustration] I gaze each morning through my rainswept casement, Into the murky, mud-bound street below; I grimly note the slush that floods the basement, The hail, the sleet--and oh! I feel that I am greater than I know! Only a demigod could thrive 'Mid such surroundings drear; Only a hero could survive In such an atmosphere! Each day the sullen sky becomes more leaden, The weather grows less suited to a dog; Each night damp mists arise, to chill and deaden! (The golf-course is a bog: Twice has my ball been stymied by a frog!) Still sweetly in my bosom wakes The knowledge nought can mar, That 'tis our island climate makes Us Britons what we are! For if we basked in fragrant, warm oases, We should not wear that air of self-control Which, round about our placid British faces, Shines like an aureole, Expressing true stolidity of soul. To chill and gloom, to frost and thaw, Our country owes to-day The dogged jaw of Bonar Law, The eye of Edward Grey!