Page:Two Mock Epics (Hanuman and Tantum Religio), Lyrics, Post Meridian Verse, The Turret Captain's Toast and other Verses.pdf/48

 And miles of canvas daubed in greens and scarlets,

And when the ape musicians meet to thump it

With blows the drum, and this the cymbal riddles,

This puffs with cheek cherubic at the trumpet,

And others scrape infuriate bows on fiddles—

You seem to hear, i’ faith, the suave seductions

Of our dramatic music’s grave productions.

Thus from the inexhaustible provisions

Of raiment that the sunken vessel offered,

The king tricked out the types of all conditions

That Europe’s own capacious lap e’er coffered;

From simple stuffs of master tailor clipped out

Milords and squires, while ’neath the scissors tripped out

Troops of contractors, those who job in shares,

Sleek Common Councilmen and staid Lord Mayors,

Head gamekeepers and shopkeepers, jack tars,

Waiters in black, with sleek solicitors,

White-aproned cooks, Swiss chocolate and ice men,

A dappled fire brigade and town policemen,

Tapsters and postmen, those in cheese and butter

Who deal, the threadbare scamps who pad the gutter;

And who was good for nothing else was set

To circulate a Government gazette.

And in the mimic art were wonders truly,

How soon the facile apish nation duly

Its whole existence to its rôle adapted,

Walking or standing still how deftly shaped it,

In every smile and attitude and gesture,

To what was just in keeping with its vesture.

Faith, if upon the apish Boulevard’s border

You’d marked an ape-one of the masher order—

How dressed in pure French style—here loose and baggy,