Page:Two Mock Epics (Hanuman and Tantum Religio), Lyrics, Post Meridian Verse, The Turret Captain's Toast and other Verses.pdf/49

 Here, on the contrary, too tight and scraggy,

It waved its tiny cane or opera glasses,

And preened a comic coiffeur’s frizzled masses,

You, sure, forgetting there of apes the land is,

Had cried: “Lo! Pricop, one of thy prime dandies!”

As to ape lady lionesses say,

Who’d paint the lily or their charms pourtray?

Those gorgeous silks, those “parures” so transcendent,

The subtle movement of those fine, dusk hands,

When, like a love-net, many a fan resplendent

Its wavering curves and chequered ribs expands,

And listening to the soft and bird-like cluttering

You think of other fair ones’ half-lisped kisses

By moonlit Moldau, or the foreign spluttering

Of malapropos by raw school-girl misses.

A heavy dream behind the apes it lay—

That time of barbarous customs, clamberings, dances;

To keep in all the pure Caucasian way

Each watched his neighbour with Draconian glances;

A crushing smile would stab the social sinner

Who, absent-minded, trod the thronged saloons

Without his tie or minus pantaloons,

Or handed with his foot some dame to dinner.

And “chronique scandaleuse” cut like a sabre

With blighting taunt, and quickly gossip warmed up

How this or that uncultivated neighbour,

By day, quite unabashed the banyan swarmed up;

And if of lotus bloom or parrot ever

Some lady ape a mild remark should venture,

Bent shell-like ear to ear each female censor,

“How naive! nu! she was never very clever!”

For well-bred apedom’s small talk to two themes is