The Sky-scrapers Anthem.

But we admit that there exists such cold-soarage souls who warp and wilt in warmth, to whom goose-flesh is the skin you love to touch, who glory in Nature's frozen products, to whom a nip in the air is worth two in the bar, and whose favourite tunes are “I Miss my Swiss” and “Old King Cold.” They are tough and turgid guys to whom anything flatter than ninety degrees below zero is conducive to fallen arches and general lowness. They are mountainous mathematicians who recognise only ice-sozzleys try-angles, and believe that a line taken in any direction will meet itself coming back. This is why they never lose themselves. Sometimes, of course, they mislay the particular mountain they had in mind, and sometimes they find that someone has gone and ratted a ravine. This explains why the slogan of the sky-scraper's club is “not lost but gone before.” Speaking mountatudinously, it is practically impossible to mistake going down a mountain for going up it, and vice versatile, so that it is fair to assume that as long as they keep descending they must be on the way down. So how can anyone ever be lost? Q.E.D., C.O.D., and so on. Let us sing a mountain air with or without a nip, as the cork may be.

Some men are made for merriment,
And some are made for work,
And some to try experiment
Where Nature's labours lurk.
At every opportunity
They risk their tender loins,
By vieing with impunity
With Nature's granite groins.
They give the granite tit for tat,
And prove that man's a trier,
Who, even though his life is flat,
Aspires to something higher.