The men that live in North England
I saw them for a day:

Their hearts are set upon the waste fells,
Their skies are fast and grey;

From their castle-walls a man may see

The mountains far away.

The men that live in West England
They see the Severn strong,
A-rolling on rough water brown

Light aspen leaves along.

They have the secret of the Rocks,
And the oldest kind of song.

But the men that live in the South Country
Are the kindest and most wise,

They get their laughter from the loud surf,
And the faith in their happy eyes
Comes surely from our Sister the Spring
When over the sea she flies;

The violets suddenly bloom at her feet,
She blesses us with surprise.

I never get between the pines

But I smell the Sussex air;
Nor I never come on a belt of sand

But my home is there.

And along the sky the line of the Downs

So noble and so bare.

A lost thing could I never find,
Nor a broken thing mend:
And I fear I shall be all alone

When I get towards the end.
Who will there be to comfort me
Or who will be my friend?

I will gather and carefully make my friends.
Of the men of the Sussex Weald;
They watch the stars from silent folds,
They stiffly plough the field.

By them and the God of the South Country
My poor soul shall be healed.

If I ever become a rich man,
Or if ever I grow to be old,

I will build a house with deep thatch
To shelter me from the cold,

And there shall the Sussex songs be sung
And the story of Sussex told.

I will hold my house in the high wood

Within a walk of the sea,

And the men that were boys when I was a boy
Shall sit and drink with me.

Anthony C. Deane

Anthony C. Deane was born in 1870 and was the Seatonian prizeman in 1905 at Clare College, Cambridge. He has been Vicar of All Saints, Ennismore Gardens, since 1916. His long

list of light verse and essays includes several excellent parodies, the most delightful being found in his New Rhymes for Old (1901).

THE BALLAD OF THE BILLYCOCK

It was the good ship Billycock, with thirteen men aboard,
Athirst to grapple with their country's foes,-

A crew, 'twill be admitted, not numerically fitted
To navigate a battleship in prose.

It was the good ship Billycock put out from Plymouth Sound,

While lustily the gallant heroes cheered,

And all the air was ringing with the merry bo'sun's singing,

Till in the gloom of night she disappeared.

But when the morning broke on her, behold, a dozen ships,

A dozen ships of France around her lay,

(Or, if that isn't plenty, I will gladly make it twenty), And hemmed her close in Salamander Bay.

Then to the Lord High Admiral there spake a cabin-boy:
"Methinks," he said, "the odds are somewhat great,
And, in the present crisis, a cabin-boy's advice is
That you and France had better arbitrate!"

"Pooh!" said the Lord High Admiral, and slapped his

manly chest,

"Pooh! That would be both cowardly and wrong; Shall I, a gallant fighter, give the needy ballad-writer No suitable material for song?"

Nay is the shorthand-writer here?-I tell you, one and all,

I mean to do my duty, as I ought;

With eager satisfaction let us clear the decks for action And fight the craven Frenchmen!" So they fought.

And (after several stanzas which as yet are incomplete, Describing all the fight in epic style)

When the Billycock was going, she'd a dozen prizes towing

(Or twenty, as above) in single file!

Ah, long in glowing English hearts the story will remain, The memory of that historic day,

And, while we rule the ocean, we will picture with emotion

The Billycock in Salamander Bay!

P.S.-I've lately noticed that the critics-who, I think, In praising my productions are remiss―

Quite easily are captured, and profess themselves enraptured,

By patriotic ditties such as this,

For making which you merely take some dauntless Englishmen,

Guns, heroism, slaughter, and a fleet

Ingredients you mingle in a metre with a jingle,
And there you have your masterpiece complete!

Why, then, with labour infinite, produce a book of verse
To languish on the "All for Twopence" shelf?
The ballad bold and breezy comes particularly easy-
I mean to take to writing it myself!

A RUSTIC SONG

Oh, I be vun of the useful troibe

O' rustic volk, I be;

And writin' gennelmen dü describe
The doin's o' such as we;

I don't knaw mooch o' corliflower plants,
I can't tell 'oes from trowels,
But 'ear me mix ma consonants,
An' moodle oop all ma vowels!

I talks in a wunnerful dialect
That vew can hunderstand,
"Tis Yorkshire-Zummerzet, I expect,
With a dash o' the Oirish brand;
Sometimes a bloomin' flower of speech
I picks from Cockney spots,
And when releegious truths I teach,
Obsairve ma richt gude Scots!