FOR YOUNG SHOOTERS in 



at the crowning moment of a big beat, I found 

 myself pulling at a half-cocked gun. Have you 

 ever experienced that misery? It leads not so 

 much to conversation as to a comminatory mono- 

 logue. I have commemorated it in verse. 



HALF-COCK 



It was a dull December day 



Days mostly are in mid-December ; 

 From tree to tres a shrieking jay 



Made discord, as I well remember. 

 ' Line up, you boys,' I heard him plain, 



The keeper cried, ' Left hand, move faster.' 

 Slight sounds, but burnt into my brain 



By that dull day's supreme disaster. 



Oh, sweet to one whose gun is cocked 



! The pheasant's rustle mid the trees is. 

 It was a covert thickly stocked 



With pheasants as with mites a cheese is. 

 The line drew onward in its beat, 



And, though the sticks kept up a clatter, 

 I seemed to hear a thousand feet 



Of pheasants on the dry leaves patter. 



