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Rh

It's striking nineteen! I must send for my man, And hasten my dressing, and hail a sedan; I'm off! at the door of my hostess to knock At exactly five minutes to twenty o'clock.

Oh palmy days of old! Oh glorious past! Long years have circled since I sang thee last; Long years of exile on an alien soil, Where weeks of fever temper months of toil; And still I mourn the land, to woes a prey, Where tape accumulates, and men decay.


 * I mourn the rule the Magistrate of yore,

A fostering despot o'er his people bore; He reigned supreme within his little State, His smile shed honour, and his frown was fate. Prompt with the rifle, niggard of the pen, By manly deeds he won the hearts of men; His watchful eye each rival chieftain viewed, And oftener calmed than curbed the rising feud. He knew the intense devotion that reveres Each usage hallowed by a thousand years;