You're mine "in haste"--and so it ends,
The usual scrambling, headlong letter;
Long vanished are the days of friends
Not otherwise more kind or better,
Who yet excelled in this respect--
In that they grudged not time or trouble
The choicest phrases to select,
Nor wrote their letters "at the double"!
You're mine "in haste." It's not your fault,
You're but unconsciously reflecting
Our modern life, we cannot halt,
The vice is now beyond correcting,
But yet we sigh for old-world days
When lighter far was toil and worry,
When life was spent in peaceful ways
Without the least idea of hurry.
You're "mine in haste"--but as I'm told
(The saying's not precisely novel)
That all that glitters is not gold,
The fairy palace proves a hovel,
So, possibly, that age was dull,
And since you've graciously consented
To live to-day--it's wonderful
And wrong, perhaps--but I'm contented!
You're "mine in haste." I must devote
Five minutes to a swift endeavour
To pen an answer to your note,
But let me sign myself, "Yours ever";
'Tis not an antiquarian taste
Which makes your phrase earn my displeasure
So much as that "you're mine in haste"
Suggests that I'll "repent at leisure"!
* * * * *
ONE OF THE CHURCH MILITANT.--The Venerable Archdeacon
DENISON celebrated his ninetieth birthday last week. He has
been in all the hard fighting, and never shirked. May he yet long be a
Denizen amongst us. _Prosit!_
* * * * *
Mrs. R. says that, though she has known it all her life, yet she could
never quite make out what is the meaning of the old saying that "One
man can only stand at a door, while another may look over a house."
* * * * *
[Illustration: REASSURING.
"LOR' BLESS YER, SIR, THAT'S ALL RIGHT, SIR! _THAT_ AIN'T A FLY,
SIR!--_THAT_'S A BIT OF DIRT!"]
* * * * *