Page:Two Mock Epics (Hanuman and Tantum Religio), Lyrics, Post Meridian Verse, The Turret Captain's Toast and other Verses.pdf/13

 Then ensconced in thy liana-

Swing, with thumb to nose deride him.

Thou hast scandalized full other

Brahmins not of Ind beside him.”

“Somewhere in thy jungles Hindostani

Relics of a giant city sadly

Brood o’er memories of departed glory,

Splendors now collapsing to the tomb,

Dreaming of the throngs that filled its churches,

Of the swarms of worship-loving people

And the palaces of haughty Nabobs,

Jewelled thrones and flashing presence-room.

Minarets, pagodas, all in ruin

And dismantled seats of mighty rajahs,

Hide beneath the fans of wavy palm groves

And the rank banana’s spacious leaves

In a heavy pall of fronds and flowers,

Pitiful the virgin woodland shrouds them

And a veil of hundred-fold lianas

O’er the face of perished glory weaves

All among that web of airy tendrils

Like a saucy gang of agile sailors

In their rigging, now of sportive apes a

Family their giddy dances run,

Sacred and descendants of the fabled

Hanuman, with whom the great one Vishnu,

Taking on himself the form of Rama,

Lanek, isle of giants, proudly won.