THE SHAKESPEARE MEMORIAL

Lord Lilac thought it rather rotten

That Shakespeare should be quite

And therefore got on a Committee

With several chaps out of the city.

And Shorter and Sir Herbert Tree,

Lord Rothschild and Lord Rosebery

And F. C. G. and Comyns Carr,

Two dukes and a dramatic star,

Also a clergyman now dead;

And while the vain world careless sped

Unheeding the heroic name —

The souls most fed with Shakespeare's flame

Still sat unconquered in a ring,

Remembering him like anything.

Lord Lilac did not long remain.

Lord Lilac did not come again.

He softly lit a cigarette

And sought some other social set

Where, in some other knots or rings,

People were doing cultured things,

— Miss Zwilt's Humane Vivarium

— The little men that paint on gum

— The exquisite Gorilla Girl....

He sometimes, in this giddy whirl

( Not being really bad at heart ),

Remembered Shakespeare with a start —

But not with that grand constancy

Of Clement Shorter, Herbert Tree,

Lord Rosebery and Comyns Carr

And all the other names there are;

Who stuck like limpets to the spot,

Lest they forgot, lest they forgot.

Lord Lilac was of slighter stuff;

Lord Lilac had had quite enough.