["Loiterers will be treated as trespassers."--_Notice on Tube
Station._]
No longer laud, my Jane, the ancient wooer
Who for the favours of his ladye fayre
Would sally forth to strafe the evil-doer
Or beard the dragon in his inmost lair;
Find it no more, dear heart, a ground for stray tiffs
Because, forsooth, you can't detect in me
A tendency to go out whopping caitiffs
Daily from ten till three.
He proved himself in his especial fashion,
Daring the worst to earn a lover's boon,
But I, no less than he a prey to passion,
Faced risks as great this very afternoon,
When at the Tube a long half-hour I waited
(In fond obedience to your written beck)
Where loiterers, it practically stated,
Would get it in the neck.
The liftmen who from time to time ascended
To spill their loads (in which you had no part)
Regarded me with eagle eyes intended
To lay the touch of terror on my heart;
But through a wait thus perilously dreary
My spirits drooped not nor my courage flinched;
"She cometh not," I merely sighed, "I'm weary
And likely to be pinched."
You came at last, long last, to end my fretting,
And now you know how your devoted bard
Faced for your sake the risk of fine or getting
An unaccustomed dose of labour (hard);
Harbour no more that idiotic notion
That love to-day is unromantic, flat;
Gave _Lancelot_ such a proof of his devotion,
Did _Galahad_ do that?
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