FIRST LESSONS ON FIXED SEATS. 35 " We sit upon our lexicons as Happy as a King' (We refer you to the picture), and we practise how to swing ; We go every day to chapel, we are never, never late, And we exercise our backs when there, and always keep them straight.
" We shoot our hands away—on land—as quick as any ball : Balls always shoot, they tell us, when rebounding from a wall.
We decline the noun 'a bucket,' and should deem it—well, a bore, If we met,' when mainly occupied in oarsmanship, our oar.
"But still there are a few things that our verdant little band, Though we use our best endeavours, cannot fully understand. So forgive us if we ask you, sir—we're dull, perhaps, but keen— To explain these solemn mysteries and tell us what they mean.
"For instance, we have heard a coach say, 'Five, you're very rank ; Mind those eyes of yours, they're straying, always straying, on the bank.' We are not prone to wonder, but we looked with some surprise At the owner of those strangely circumambulating eyes.
" There's a stroke who 'slices awfully,' and learns without remorse That his crew are all to pieces at the finish of the course ; There's A., who chucks his head about,' and B., who 'twists and screws,' Like an animated gimlet in a pair of shorts and shoes.
" And C. is ' all beginning,' so remark his candid friends ; It must wear him out in time, we think, this stroke that never ends.
And though D. has no beginning, yet his finish is As ; How can that possess a finish which has never been begun? "And E. apparently would be an oar beyond compare, If the air were only water and the water only air.
Univ Calif - Digitized by Microsoft C.A) And F., whose style is lofty, doubtless has his reasons why He should wish to scrape the judgment seat, when rowing, from the sky.
"Then G. is far too neat for work, and H. is far too rough ; There's J., who lugs, they say, too much, and K. not half
enough ; There's L., who's never fairly done, and M., who's done too brown, And N., who can't stand training, and poor 0., who can't sit down.
"And P. is much too limp to last ; there's Q. too stiffly starched ; And R., poor fool, whose inside wrist is never `nicely arched.' And, oh, sir, if you pity us, pray tell us, if you please, What is meant by 'keep your button up,' and 'flatten down your knees.' " If an oar may be described as ' he,' there's no death half so grim As the death like which we hang on with our outside hands to 'him ; ' But in spite of all our efforts, we have never grasped, have you? How not to use 'those arms' of ours, and yet to pull it through.
" S. ' never pulled his shoestrings.' If a man must pull at all, Why uselessly pull shoestrings? Such a task would surely pall. But T.'s offence is worse than that, he'll never get his Blue, He thinks rowing is a pastime—well, we own we thought so too.
" Then V.'s 'a shocking sugarer,' how bitter to be that ! X. flourishes his oar about as if it were a bat ; And Y. should be provided, we imagine, with a spade, Since he always ' digs,' instead of ' merely covering his blade.' "Lastly, Z.'s a 'real old corker,' who will never learn to work, For he puts his oar in gently and extracts it with a jerk.
Oh I never has there been, we trow, since wickedness began, Such a mass of imperfections as the perfect rowing man.
" So they coach us and reproach us (like a flock of silly jays Taught by parrots how to feather) through these dull October days.
We shall never understand them, so we shouldn't care a dam * If they all were sunk in silence at the bottom of the Cam."