Splendour, Whom Lately On Your Glowing Flight Athwart The Chill And Cheerless Winter-Skies I Marked And Welcomed With A Futile Right, And Then A Futile Left, And Strained My Eyes To See You So Magnificently Large, Sinking To Rest Beyond The Fir-Wood'S Marge - Not Mine, Not Mine The Fault: Despise Me Not In That I Missed You; For The Sun Was Down, And The Dim Light Was All Against The Shot; And I Had Booked A Bet Of Half-A-Crown. My Deadly Fire Is Apt To Be Upset By Many Causes - Always By A Bet. Or Had I Overdone It With The Sloes, Snared By Their Home-Picked Brand Of Ardent Gin Designed To Warm A Shivering Sportsman'S Toes And Light A Fire His Reckless Head Within? Or Did My Silly Loader Put Me Off With Aimless Chatter In Regard To Golf? You Too, I Think, Displayed A Lack Of Nerve; You Did Not Quite-Now Did You?-Play The Game; For When You Saw Me You Were Seen To Swerve, Doubtless In Order To Disturb My Aim. No, No, You Must Not Ask Me To Forgive A Swerve Because You Basely Planned To Live. At Any Rate I Missed You, And You Went, The Last Day'S Absolutely Final Bird, Scathless, And Left Me Very Ill Content; And Someone (Was It I?) Pronounced A Word, A Word Which Rather Forcible Than Nice Is, A Little Word Which Does Not Rhyme With Isis. Farewell! I May Behold You Once Again When Next November'S Gales Have Stripped The Leaf. Then, While Your Upward Flight You Grandly Strain, May I Be There To Add You To My Sheaf; And May They Praise Your Tallness, Saying "This Was Such A Bird As Men Are Proud To Miss!"