At Cambridge, where on field or flood
He shone like a GOLDIE or a STUDD,
He was an intellectual "blood."
He made the grimmest dons unbend,
And missed his First, right at the end,
For he cut his Tripos--to nurse a friend.
Then he wrote a novel. The weekly press
Declared it was worthy of R.L.S.;
But it wasn't a great financial success.
So, after a spell at the Bar, he flew
To the rubber-fields in remote Peru,
But stayed there only a month or two.
For he suddenly conceived a plan
Of studying music at Milan,
Where he sang in the style of the great god Pan.
I heard him sing in the Albert Hall
In the chorus of MENDELSSOHN's _St. Paul_,
And his voice was the loudest of them all.
Next he leased a Colorado mine,
And dealt in Californian wine,
And rented a ranche in the Argentine.
But whatever the job and whatever the pay
I certainly never knew him to stay
Anywhere as long as a year and a day--
Except one job, which is not yet done,
Though twenty months ago begun,
Of holding and hammering the Hun.
His horoscope I have never scanned,
But as long as there's any fighting on hand
The rolling stone has come to a stand.
* * * * *
Irreplaceable.