Page:Two Mock Epics (Hanuman and Tantum Religio), Lyrics, Post Meridian Verse, The Turret Captain's Toast and other Verses.pdf/16

 Thou, around whose brow primeval legend

Wove a starry crown, whose fame

Holy Ganges, snow-clad Himalaya

Echoed, at whose sacred name

Pious Ind low looted, rude born sailors

Now art made the butt of: rabble railers

Taunt and pelt thee with the words of shame.

Thee who wont’st to be the bright exemplar

To all creatures of thy race,

And who knewest naught but warm affection

In a mother’s fond embrace,

And the love her heart alone could offer:

Now the stinging lash constrains to proffer

Servile bows and tricks of little grace.

Thus the high-born captive sailed the ocean

Many a night and many a day;

Flashed around him like a spangled dream-land

Foreign shores in bright array,

Till, at length, the vessel reached the clouded

Northworld and by Albion’s mists enshrouded,

Moored within the echoing harbour lay.

There within the sailors’ reeking tavern,

On a mat of plaited cane,

Crouched the ape, disconsolate, when o’er him

Those colossi once again

Waved their spreading boughs—and lo! the lotus

Through the serried gloom flashed out remote as

Some wild eyeball from th’ enchanted main.