_(On perceiving William in mufti again and carrying one.)_
What is this implement of warfare, Bill?
What seed of fire within its entrails slumbers?
Does it unfold at all? Run through the drill,
Doing it first by numbers.
Not a grenade and not a parachute?
Some remnant rather of the ancient folly,
Some touch of times before the Big Dispute?
I have it now! A brolly.
Yes, and it opens outwards like a tent,
Guarding the sacred poll from skies injurious.
Up with it! Let us see your tops'ls bent.
How splendid! And how curious!
Do it again, Bill. I am better now;
Only at first, perhaps, I slightly trembled.
Press on the little clutch and show me how
The parts are reassembled.
To think men poked these things into the sky,
Fearing to face the storm's minutest particles,
Through four long hectic years, whilst you and I
Forgot there were such articles.
It brings the old times back to one again,
The grim-eyed crowd that faced the morning's dolours
Doing their very best to drip the rain
Down other people's collars;
The fond, fond pair beneath a single dome;
The fight to ride on Hammersmiths and Chelseas;
The rapture when you found on reaching home
Your gamp was someone else's.
O symbol of routine and office hours!
O emblem of the soft civilian status!
Shall I too deign to roof me from the showers
With such an apparatus?
Shall I consent to grasp within my hand
The sign of serfdom and to get the habit
Of marching like a mushroom down the Strand,
A mushroom on a rabbit?
Never. O hateful sight! And yet--and yet
I'm not so sure. This month has been a dry one;
June will most probably be beastly wet;
P'r'aps, after all, I'll buy one.