The Henson Journals

[63]

Monday, February 3rd, 1919.

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The 'Times' had a fair report of yesterday's sermon: & there were short notices of it in several papers. I went again to Troutbeck, and then called on the Dean of Westminster, with whom I talked for half an hour. Then I lunched at the Club, 'took up my carriages' at the Hotel, picked up Ella in Eaton Square, and drove to Paddington, where we caught the 3 p.m. train for Hereford and arrived there shortly before 8 p.m. Dr Patterson came round after dinner & bound up my arm. Then Lilley came to see me. After he had gone, I wrote letters &c until bed–time.

[64] [symbol]

Beeching sends the following "Ode suggested by the proposal to amalgamate the Christian Associations for Young Man & Young Women".

Strophe.

Y oung men, who after duty done

M ake Christian sport & recreation

C an your glad hearts be glad alone

A merely male association?

Antistrophe.

Y e maidens, who repair fatigue

W ith tea and toast and Christian tattle,

C an such an Amazonian league

Avail for victory in life's battle?

Epode.

Nay, but be wise: your strengths unite:

Let not prophetic dirges trouble you:

Sun goes with shade, & left with right,

And M is but a form of W:

You will be wiser both than either,

When you have worked and played together.

[65] [symbol]

Epigram

Occasioned by ye singing of Mr Byrom's hymn at a late morning service at Christ Church, Norwich, on Christmas Day.

'Christians awake'! ye mild Precentor cries:

'What wake at half past twelve?' ye Dean replies;

'Yes, Sir' your sermon's done, and for ye sake

Of ye Collection it were best to awake'.

The box of Spikenard

A.D. 1919

(A sonnet suggested by a recent correspondence on War Memorials in the Eastern Daily Press.)

How shall we raise a trophy to our dead? –

Build for poor rate payers a new Town Hall:

Or for the Sick a larger Hospital:

Or for the Old a Club–room where instead

Of beer they may drink tea, and so be led

To virtue : or for Labour's festival

A picnic Park: or haply, best of all

A wash–house for tired labour going to bed?

[66]

Dear Ghosts, we know you died for us that we

Might live at ease: & so some pillar of stone,

To Comfort raised, should mark our grateful sense:

Yet, for the times are critical, maybe

'Twere best to enshrine you in our hearts alone,

And save for wages our "Three hundred pence".

H. C. B.

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