Diversions

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 86, 5 January 1935, Page 6

Diversions

HIGH SUMMER Once I recall, not long ago. Rain fell in buckets to my woe. They wrecked my seedlings, blocked my drains, Those culpable, torrential rains. And then turned clean backyards to

bogs, The way they came down cats and dogs, They soaked my trees’ roots; then the

wind Tore them clean out. left naught be-

hind. Spring’s genial sunshine! such

boon Blessed my prized Sunday afternoon ! My car stood still in the garage, To go out one would need a barge. And now the sun has come. Hooray! Let’s hope that it has come to stay. Torrential rains have ceased to sin, And summer IS a-coming in. And I—Am I now overjoyed? With happiness in my soul cloyed? Alas! lam an ungrateful wretch. No smiles the sunshine from me fetch. To-day I knit my brows and sigh, “The garden’s looking very dry.” —“Oriel” in the Melbourne “Argus.”

IN THE POPULAR LIBRARY Isn’t life extraordin’ry? Isn’t it a game? A novel in a library Sees it just the same. Not 500 copies Scattered through the land, In a small provincial town On a shelf I stand, Feeling fairly dirty (Tho’ my jacket’s new), Pickles on page thirty, Egg on fifty-two. Been with a consumptive Very near death's door; Boy with measleg read me Where I was before. When I’m read in kitchens It's on cookie’s knee, Underneath her bedclothes Tweenie devours me; Father reads me quickly . Ou a Sunday morn; Mother just skips thro’ me (Baby’s on the lawn); Martha reads me waiting In a chair for Sam; Then I’m taken back again Tucked in baby’s pram. Isn’t life extraordin’ry? Isn’t it a game? In a tuppenny library You see it just the same. ■ —“Song, of a Tuppenny,” by “M.D.M.” in the “Bookseller.” * * * MORE GINGER “A class in English was given the task of writing four lines of dramatic poetry. One boy wrote: “‘A boy was walking down the track. The train was coming fast, The boy stepped off the railroad track To let the train go past.’ “The teacher said, ‘lt lacks the dramatic,’ so the boy submitted: “ ‘A boy was walking down, the track.

The train was coming fast, The train jumped off the railroad track To let the boy go past.’ ”

(The British Broadcasting Corporation recently pleaded for moderation in the use of loudspeakers out of doors.) A garden is a lovesome —what. You don’t, agree? Why ever not?

Give me a golden afternoon And that inestimable boon (Assuming that there's oue to hand) A British military band; How lovely to regard the rose, With someone crooning through his

nose, Or what, indeed, could be more fair Than dirt-track races “on the air”? I tovo the genius who plans That fifty thousand football fans Yelling a dozen miles away Should Indicate the trend of play. What? Arsenal have lost? That’s torn it; Let’s have a solo on the cornet.

As I was sayiifg (blow the bees, One can’t converse, or hear with ease) A garden is a lovesome —what, You don’t agree? Why ever not? —Frank Buckland, in the “Guardian ”