Page:Two Mock Epics (Hanuman and Tantum Religio), Lyrics, Post Meridian Verse, The Turret Captain's Toast and other Verses.pdf/18

 Neatly bind the napkin’s snow-white corners

Round his neck and eat his food

Nicely, bit by bit, with fork impaling

And, magnanimous of mood,

To the waiter hand a frank and duly

Ply his toothpick—crowning wonder truly!

Wipe his small moustache with wine imbued,

In his chequered hat collect the pennies;

From some generous little hand

Sometimes fell some sweet fruit from some orchard

For him of that northern land.

In his master’s arms he slept: nor more he

Moaned his forest home, it seemed the glory

Of his heavenly home from thought was banned.

But at last that nomad life the outcast

Wearied of, and now once more

Yearned to coil the cable and the ocean’s

Boundless plain to voyage o’er;

And so once he stepped into the haven

There the ship stood with the tall masts shaven

And the sails set for some foreign shore.

Thus it chanced: a green-room Alexander

Caught by a sublime idea,

Would, this genius of an impressario,

Forth to Himalaya steer;

Indus, Ganges, and Nerbudda’s sluices

Tap, a virgin soil for thirsty muses,

Those to whom the Thespian art is dear,