Little beam of purest ray
Lying like a path of glory
Through the chimney-pots that sway
Over London's topmost storey,
Lighting to the knightly fray
Pussies black and brown and gray,
Lovesick tenors young and gay,
Whiskered bassos old and hoary,
Shining from my attic room
Thou dost lure them to their doom.
How could I without thine aid
Greet their ill-timed serenade?
How discover in the dark
If the hair-brush found its mark,
Or distinguish hits from misses
As the whistling soap-dish hisses,
Lifting like a bursting bomb
James, the next door neighbour's Tom?
Now by nailing half a kipper
Neath thy radiance I can down
(Aiming carefully at the brown
With a bootjack or a slipper)
Half the amorous cats in Town.
Now as I remove my boots
I can count the stricken brutes,
Chalking as I pass to bed
On the wall above my head,
"Thirteen wounded, seven dead."
I have strafed the surly Fritz
In the neighbourhood of "Wipers,"
Bombed the artless Turk to bits,
Potted his elusive snipers,
Blown his comfortable lair
Like a nest of stinging vipers
Several hundred feet in air;
But the sport was tame, I wis,
In comparison with this,
When the bottle built for stout
Lays the chief soprano out,
And the heavy letter-weight
Drums on her astonished mate,
Ginger Bill, the bass, who falls
Uttering fearful caterwauls.
* * * *
(_Later._) Baleful shaft of light,
Blazing like a ruddy beacon,
Guiding through the starless night
Zeppelins that come to wreak on
Sleeping Londoners the might
Of Teutonic _schrecklichkeit_,
Tears bedew the pillow white
Which I lay my blenching cheek on,
For the minion of the law,
Who in peace-time droops and drowses,
From a point of vantage saw,
Gleaming high above the houses,
Thee, incriminating ray,
And--there is a fine to pay.
C. H. BRETHERTON.
Nov. 8, 1916.