[Time-Guns Are Of Invariable Pattern And Extreme Antiquity. Other Species Come And Go; Their Ancestor Remains Always. One Is To Be Found In Each Cantonment: He Generally Occupies A Position Of Unsheltered And Pathetic Loneliness In A Corner Of The Local Parade-Ground. The Writer Has Never Seen One Herded In The Gun-Park With His Kind.] Strong Scion Of The Sturdy Past When Simpler Methods Ruled The Fray, At Whose Demoralising Blast The Stoutest Foe Recoiled Aghast, How Fall'N Art Thou To-Day! Thy Power The Little Children Mock; Thy Voice, That Shook The Serried Line, But Supplements The Morning Cock At - Roughly Speaking - One O'Clock, And - Broadly - Half-Past Nine. (Saving When Thomas' Deep Employ Th' Attendant Closing Hour Postpones, And He, The Undefeated Boy, To Gain A Temporary Joy, Hath Stuffed Thee Up With Stones.) Thy Kindred Of A Mushroom 'Mark,' Young Guns, Intolerably Spruce, Have Cast Thee From The Social 'Park'; Which, To Their Humbled Patriarch, Must Be The Very Deuce. Their Little Toils With Leisure Crowned, They, In Their Turn, Will Seek The Vale Of Rest That Thou Hast Never Found; What Wonder If Thy Daily Round Is Very Like A Wail? Yet Many Love Thee. Though His Clutch Be Heavy, Time Doth Still Afford That Fine Consolatory Touch - It Hardly Seems To Go For Much, But Cannot Be Ignored. For Him That Braves The Midday Fare Thou Hast The Immemorial Task Of Booming Forth At One - Or There- Abouts - Which Saves The Wear And Tear Of Yelling Out To Ask. So, When Athwart The Glooming Flats Thy Hoarse, Nocturnal Whispers Stray - Much To The Horror Of The Bats - We're One Day Nearer Home, And That's A Comfort, Anyway! Then Courage! Guns May Come And Go, But Him Alone We Hold Divine Whose Task It Is To Let Us Know The Hours Of One O'Clock - Or So - And - Roundly - Half-Past Nine.