Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/76

58 Must babus do their work on polished teak?

Are ballrooms fittest for the ink you spill?

Was there no other cheaper house to seek?

You might have left them all at Strawberry Hill.

We never harmed you! Innocent our guise,

Dainty our shining feet, our voices low;

And we revolved to divers melodies,

And we were happy but a year ago.

To-night, the moon that watched our lightsome wiles—

That beamed upon us through the deodars—

Is wan with gazing on official files,

And desecrating desks disgust the stars.

Nay! by the memory of tuneful nights—

Nay! by the witchery of flying feet—

Nay! by the glamour of foredone delights—

By all things merry, musical, and meet—

By wine that sparkled, and by sparkling eyes—

By wailing waltz—by reckless gallop's strain—

By dim verandas and by soft replies.

Give us our ravished ballroom back again!

Or—hearken to the curse we lay on you!

The ghosts of waltzes shall perplex your brain,

And murmurs of past merriment pursue

Your 'wildered clerks that they indite in vain;

And when you count your poor Provincial millions,

The only figures that your pen shall frame

Shall be the figures of dear, dear cotillions

Danced out in tumult long before you came.

Yea! "See Saw" shall upset your estimates,

"Dream Faces" shall your heavy heads bemuse.

Because your hand, unheeding, desecrates

Our temple fit for higher, worthier use.