Sports and

Pastimes

Our life is short, and our days run
As fast away as does the sun.
And as a vapour, or a drop of rain,

Once lost, can ne'er be found again,
are mad

So when or you or

A fable, song, or fleeting shade,

All love, ail liking, all delight,

Lies drowned with us in endless night. Then, while time serves, and we are but decaying, Come, my Corinna, come, let's go a Maying. ROBERT HERRICK.

Jog On, Jog On*

Jog on, jog on the foot path-way,
And merrily hent the stile-a,
Your merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a.

Your paltry money-bags of gold—
What need have we to stare for,
When little or nothing soon is told,
And we have the less to care for.

Then cast away care, let sorrow ceɛse,
A fig for melancholy;

Let's laugh and sing, or, if you plesse,

We'll frolic with sweet Dolly,

From The Winter's Tale.

* First stanza by William Shakespeare. Last two stanzas by unknown author in "Antic'ci Against Melancholy," 1661.

A Vagabond Song

Sports and

There is something in the Autumn that is native Pastimes

to my blood

Touch of manner, hint of mood;

And my heart is like a rhyme,

With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.

The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry
Of bugles going by.

And my lonely spirit thrills

To see the frosty asters like smoke upon the hills.

There is something in October sets the gipsy blood astir;

We must rise and follow her,

When from every hill of flame

She calls and calls each vagabond by name.

BLISS CARMAN.

Swimming

And mightier grew the joy to meet full-faced
Each wave, and mount with upward plunge, and
taste

The rapture of its rolling strength, and cross
Its flickering crown of snows that flash and toss

Sports Like plumes in battle's blithest charge, and thence and To match the next with yet more strenuous sense;

Pastimes

Till on his eyes the light beat hard and bade

His face turn west and shoreward through the glad

Swift revel of the waters golden-clad,

And back with light reluctant heart he bore
Across the broad-backed rollers in to shore.

ALGERNON C. SWINBURNE.

How many a time have I

Cloven, with arm still lustier, breast more daring,
The wave all roughened; with a swimmer's stroke
Flinging the billows back from my drenched hair,
And laughing from my lip the audacious brine,
Which kissed it like a wine-cup, rising o'er
The waves as they arose, and prouder still
The loftier they uplifted me; and oft,
In wantonness of spirit, plunging down
Into their green and glassy gulfs, and making
My way to shells and seaweed, all unseen
By those above, till they waxed fearful; then
Returning with my grasp full of such tokens
As showed that I had searched the deep; exulting,
With a far-dashing stroke, and drawing deep

The long suspended breath, again I spurned
The foam which broke around me, and pursued
My track like a sea-bird.-I was a boy then.
GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON.

From "The Two Foscari.”

Sports and Pastimes

The Angler's Reveille

What time the rose of dawn is laid across the lips of night,

And all the drowsy little stars have fallen asleep in light;

"Tis then a wandering wind awakes, and runs from tree to tree,

And borrows words from all the birds to sound the reveille.

This is the carol the Robin throws

Over the edge of the valley;

Listen how boldly it flows,

Sally on sally:

Tirra-lirra,
Down the river,

Laughing water

All a-quiver.

Day is near,

From "The Toiling of Felix." By permission of Charles

Boribner's Sons.

Sports and Pastimes

Clear, clear.

Fish are breaking,
Time for waking.

Tup, tup, tup!
Do you hear?
All clear-
Wake up!

The phantom flood of dreams has ebbed and vanished with the dark,

And like a dove the heart forsakes the prison of the ark;

Now forth she fares through friendly woods and diamond-fields of dew,

While every voice cries out " Rejoice!" as if the world were new.

This is the ballad the Bluebird sings,

Unto his mate replying,
Shaking the tune from his wings

While he is flying:

Surely, surely, surely,

Life is dear

Even here.

Blue above,

You to love,

Furely, purely, purely.