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The Spike: or, Victoria University College Review, June 1921
Membra Disjecta
Membra Disjecta.
(The following Fragments are printed to perpetuate the memory of a Youth of genius and intellect, who smitten one day with the divine Afflatus. tossed them and others off with the most marvellous rapidity, but the wastage of his Frame, not fitted for long to sustain the ardours of poetic Composition, was aggravated by the refusal by the "Triad" of some of his most inspired verses; and blasted alike by this disappointment and his too furious wooing of the Muse, he descended into an untimely grave.)
I
To James Brook, Esq.
Brooky! I love thee for thy cheerful mien,
The optimistic smile upon thy face,
(That ever our chief ornament has been)—
Thy conversation's frank, unstudied grace;
I love thee for the way thou wav'st thine arm
And speed'st the traffic up upon the stairs;
I love thee., and I view with wild alarm
The lessening numbers of thy sacred hairs.
Lo! I have seen thee, like some classic god.
Majestically standing in the door
And I have seen thy head, so noble, nod
With weariness—I love thee more and more:
But chief of all, amid the noisy crowd.
I love thy magic whisper, "Not so loud"
II
Triolet.
When Gin blows his whistle
The chorus all jump.
They fear that he'll bristle
(When Gin blows his whistle)—
He's a prickly old thistle
When you give him the hump—
When Gin blows his whistle
The chorus all jump.