BALLADE OF WHIST

Published in the Cambridge Magazine

Cambridge University, Cambridge, England

11 May 1899

You play with a full pack,

And deal them one by one;

You lead the Ace with Queen and Jack

(As you have rightly done);

But lo ! a spot upon your sun,

A worm in your pea-pod—

I trump you, when you have begun

To reckon on the odd.

With what a mighty smack

Your King of Trumps is won!

Your partner’s face grows very black;

He doesn’t think it fun.

A Yankee would have used a gun,

A schoolmaster a rod—

A ten ace may be led of none

Who reckon on the odd.

And now, amid the wrack

Of your position,

Their old established suit comes back,

With an unfettered run;

It is no time for jibe or pun,

But to beseech the sod

To yawn for you, who did not shun

To reckon on the odd.

L’ENVOI

At Ulm the troops of Mack

Surrendered in a bod-

Y, in a cul-de-sac,

At Bonaparte’s attack;

Be wary lest, strong clod,^[1]

You reckon on the odd.

1—The author is indebted to Mr. Francis Thompson for this felicitous and, withal, epigrammatic way of writing “ man.”