We have another Viceroy now, those days are dead and done—
   Of Delilah Aberyswith and most mean Ulysses Gunne!

   Hurree Chunder Mookerjee, pride of Bow Bazaar,
   Owner of a native press, “Barrishter-at-Lar,”
    Waited on the Government with a claim to wear
   Sabres by the bucketful, rifles by the pair.

   Then the Indian Government winked a wicked wink,
   Said to Chunder Mookerjee: “Stick to pen and ink.
   They are safer implements, but, if you insist,
   We will let you carry arms wheresoe'er you list.”

   Hurree Chunder Mookerjee sought the gunsmith and
   Bought the tubes of Lancaster, Ballard, Dean, and Bland,
   Bought a shiny bowie-knife, bought a town-made sword,
   Jingled like a carriage-horse when he went abroad.

   But the Indian Government, always keen to please,
   Also gave permission to horrid men like these—
   Yar Mahommed Yusufzai, down to kill or steal,
   Chimbu Singh from Bikaneer, Tantia the Bhil;

   Killar Khan the Marri chief, Jowar Singh the Sikh,
   Nubbee Baksh Punjabi Jat, Abdul Huq Rafiq—
   He was a Wahabi; last, little Boh Hla-oo
   Took advantage of the Act—took a Snider too.

   They were unenlightened men, Ballard knew them not.
   They procured their swords and guns chiefly on the spot;
   And the lore of centuries, plus a hundred fights,
   Made them slow to disregard one another's rights.

   With a unanimity dear to patriot hearts
   All those hairy gentlemen out of foreign parts
   Said: “The good old days are back—let us go to war!”
    Swaggered down the Grand Trunk Road into Bow Bazaar,

   Nubbee Baksh Punjabi Jat found a hide-bound flail;
   Chimbu Singh from Bikaneer oiled his Tonk jezail;
   Yar Mahommed Yusufzai spat and grinned with glee
   As he ground the butcher-knife of the Khyberee.

   Jowar Singh the Sikh procured sabre, quoit, and mace,
   Abdul Huq, Wahabi, jerked his dagger from its place,
   While amid the jungle-grass danced and grinned and jabbered
   Little Boh Hla-oo and cleared his dah-blade from the scabbard.

   What became of Mookerjee? Soothly, who can say?
   Yar Mahommed only grins in a nasty way,
   Jowar Singh is reticent, Chimbu Singh is mute.
   But the belts of all of them simply bulge with loot.

   What became of Ballard's guns? Afghans black and grubby
   Sell them for their silver weight to the men of Pubbi;
   And the shiny bowie-knife and the town-made sword are
   Hanging in a Marri camp just across the Border.

   What became of Mookerjee? Ask Mahommed Yar
   Prodding Siva's sacred bull down the Bow Bazaar.
   Speak to placid Nubbee Baksh—question land and sea—
   Ask the Indian Congressmen—only don't ask me!

   They are fools who kiss and tell”—
     Wisely has the poet sung.
   Man may hold all sorts of posts
     If he'll only hold his tongue.

   Jenny and Me were engaged, you see,
     On the eve of the Fancy Ball;
   So a kiss or two was nothing to you
     Or any one else at all.

   Jenny would go in a domino—
     Pretty and pink but warm;
   While I attended, clad in a splendid
     Austrian uniform.

   Now we had arranged, through notes exchanged
     Early that afternoon,
   At Number Four to waltz no more,
     But to sit in the dusk and spoon.

   I wish you to see that Jenny and Me
     Had barely exchanged our troth;
   So a kiss or two was strictly due
     By, from, and between us both.

   When Three was over, an eager lover,
     I fled to the gloom outside;
   And a Domino came out also
     Whom I took for my future bride.

   That is to say, in a casual way,
     I slipped my arm around her;
   With a kiss or two (which is nothing to you),
     And ready to kiss I found her.

   She turned her head and the name she said
     Was certainly not my own;
   But ere I could speak, with a smothered shriek
     She fled and left me alone.

   Then Jenny came, and I saw with shame
     She'd doffed her domino;
   And I had embraced an alien waist—
     But I did not tell her so.

   Next morn I knew that there were two
     Dominoes pink, and one
   Had cloaked the spouse of Sir Julian House,
     Our big Political gun.

   Sir J. was old, and her hair was gold,
     And her eye was a blue cerulean;
   And the name she said when she turned her head
     Was not in the least like “Julian.”

   Shun—shun the Bowl! That fatal, facile drink
     Has ruined many geese who dipped their quills in 't;
   Bribe, murder, marry, but steer clear of Ink
     Save when you write receipts for paid-up bills in 't.

   There may be silver in the “blue-black”—all
   I know of is the iron and the gall.

   Boanerges Blitzen, servant of the Queen,
   Is a dismal failure—is a Might-have-been.
   In a luckless moment he discovered men
   Rise to high position through a ready pen.
   Boanerges Blitzen argued therefore—“I,
   With the selfsame weapon, can attain as high.”
    Only he did not possess when he made the trial,
   Wicked wit of C-lv-n, irony of L—l.

   [Men who spar with Government need, to back their blows,
   Something more than ordinary journalistic prose.]

   Never young Civilian's prospects were so bright,
   Till an Indian paper found that he could write:
   Never young Civilian's prospects were so dark,
   When the wretched Blitzen wrote to make his mark.
   Certainly he scored it, bold, and black, and firm,
   In that Indian paper—made his seniors squirm,
   Quoted office scandals, wrote the tactless truth—
   Was there ever known a more misguided youth?
   When the Rag he wrote for praised his plucky game,
   Boanerges Blitzen felt that this was Fame;
   When the men he wrote of shook their heads and swore,
   Boanerges Blitzen only wrote the more:

   Posed as Young Ithuriel, resolute and grim,
   Till he found promotion didn't come to him;
   Till he found that reprimands weekly were his lot,
   And his many Districts curiously hot.

   Till he found his furlough strangely hard to win,
   Boanerges Blitzen didn't care to pin:
   Then it seemed to dawn on him something wasn't right—
   Boanerges Blitzen put it down to “spite”;

   Languished in a District desolate and dry;
   Watched the Local Government yearly pass him by;
   Wondered where the hitch was; called it most unfair.
   *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

   That was seven years ago—and he still is there!

           “Why is my District death-rate low?”
              Said Binks of Hezabad.
           “Well, drains, and sewage-outfalls are
             “My own peculiar fad.

           “I learnt a lesson once, It ran
           “Thus,” quoth that most veracious man:—

   It was an August evening and, in snowy garments clad,
   I paid a round of visits in the lines of Hezabad;
   When, presently, my Waler saw, and did not like at all,
   A Commissariat elephant careering down the Mall.

   I couldn't see the driver, and across my mind it rushed
   That that Commissariat elephant had suddenly gone musth.

   I didn't care to meet him, and I couldn't well get down,
   So I let the Waler have it, and we headed for the town.

   The buggy was a new one and, praise Dykes, it stood the strain,
   Till the Waler jumped a bullock just above the City Drain;
   And the next that I remember was a hurricane of squeals,
   And the creature making toothpicks of my five-foot patent wheels.

   He seemed to want the owner, so I fled, distraught with fear,
   To the Main Drain sewage-outfall while he snorted in my ear—
   Reached the four-foot drain-head safely and, in darkness and despair,
   Felt the brute's proboscis fingering my terror-stiffened hair.

   Heard it trumpet on my shoulder—tried to crawl a little higher—
   Found the Main Drain sewage outfall blocked, some eight feet up, with mire;
   And, for twenty reeking minutes, Sir, my very marrow froze,
   While the trunk was feeling blindly for a purchase on my toes!

   It missed me by a fraction, but my hair was turning grey
   Before they called the drivers up and dragged the brute away.

   Then I sought the City Elders, and my words were very plain.
   They flushed that four-foot drain-head and—it never choked again!

   You may hold with surface-drainage, and the sun-for-garbage cure,
   Till you've been a periwinkle shrinking coyly up a sewer.

   I believe in well-flushed culverts....

                                     This is why the death-rate's small;
   And, if you don't believe me, get shikarred yourself. That's all.

            Lest you should think this story true
            I merely mention I
            Evolved it lately. 'Tis a most
            Unmitigated misstatement.

   Now Jones had left his new-wed bride to keep his house in order,
   And hied away to the Hurrum Hills above the Afghan border,
   To sit on a rock with a heliograph; but ere he left he taught
   His wife the working of the Code that sets the miles at naught.

   And Love had made him very sage, as Nature made her fair;
   So Cupid and Apollo linked, per heliograph, the pair.
   At dawn, across the Hurrum Hills, he flashed her counsel wise—
   At e'en, the dying sunset bore her husband's homilies.

   He warned her 'gainst seductive youths in scarlet clad and gold,
   As much as 'gainst the blandishments paternal of the old;
   But kept his gravest warnings for (hereby the ditty hangs)
   That snowy-haired Lothario, Lieutenant-General Bangs.

   'Twas General Bangs, with Aide and Staff, who tittupped on the way,
   When they beheld a heliograph tempestuously at play.
   They thought of Border risings, and of stations sacked and burnt—
   So stopped to take the message down—and this is what they learnt—

   “Dash dot dot, dot, dot dash, dot dash dot” twice. The General swore.

   “Was ever General Officer addressed as 'dear' before?
   “'My Love,' i' faith! 'My Duck,' Gadzooks! 'My darling popsy-wop!'
   “Spirit of great Lord Wolseley, who is on that mountaintop?”

   The artless Aide-de-camp was mute; the gilded Staff were still,
   As, dumb with pent-up mirth, they booked that message from the hill;
   For clear as summer lightning-flare, the husband's warning ran:—
   “Don't dance or ride with General Bangs—a most immoral man.”

   [At dawn, across the Hurrum Hills, he flashed her counsel wise—
   But, howsoever Love be blind, the world at large hath eyes.]
   With damnatory dot and dash he heliographed his wife
   Some interesting details of the General's private life.

   The artless Aide-de-camp was mute, the shining Staff were still,
   And red and ever redder grew the General's shaven gill.

   And this is what he said at last (his feelings matter not):—
   “I think we've tapped a private line. Hi! Threes about there! Trot!”

   All honour unto Bangs, for ne'er did Jones thereafter know
   By word or act official who read off that helio.

   But the tale is on the Frontier, and from Michni to Mooltan
   They know the worthy General as “that most immoral man.”

   Twelve hundred million men are spread
    About this Earth, and I and You
   Wonder, when You and I are dead,
    “What will those luckless millions do?”

   None whole or clean, we cry, “or free from stain
   Of favour.” Wait awhile, till we attain
     The Last Department where nor fraud nor fools,
   Nor grade nor greed, shall trouble us again.

   Fear, Favour, or Affection—what are these
   To the grim Head who claims our services?
     I never knew a wife or interest yet
   Delay that pukka step, miscalled “decease”;

   When leave, long overdue, none can deny;
   When idleness of all Eternity
     Becomes our furlough, and the marigold
   Our thriftless, bullion-minting Treasury

   Transferred to the Eternal Settlement,
   Each in his strait, wood-scantled office pent,
     No longer Brown reverses Smith's appeals,
   Or Jones records his Minute of Dissent.

   And One, long since a pillar of the Court,
   As mud between the beams thereof is wrought;
     And One who wrote on phosphates for the crops
   Is subject-matter of his own Report.

   These be the glorious ends whereto we pass—
   Let Him who Is, go call on Him who Was;
     And He shall see the mallie steals the slab
   For currie-grinder, and for goats the grass.

   A breath of wind, a Border bullet's flight,
   A draught of water, or a horse's fright—
     The droning of the fat Sheristadar
   Ceases, the punkah stops, and falls the night

   For you or Me. Do those who live decline
   The step that offers, or their work resign?
     Trust me, Today's Most Indispensables,
   Five hundred men can take your place or mine.

RECESSIONAL
   (A Victorian Ode)

   God of our fathers, known of old—
     Lord of our far-flung battle line—
   Beneath whose awful hand we hold
     Dominion over palm and pine—

   Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
   Lest we forget—lest we forget!

   The tumult and the shouting dies—
     The Captains and the Kings depart—
   Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
     An humble and a contrite heart.

   Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
   Lest we forget—lest we forget!

   Far-called our navies melt away—
     On dune and headland sinks the fire—
   Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
     Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!

   Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
   Lest we forget—lest we forget!

   If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
     Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe—
   Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
     Or lesser breeds without the Law—

   Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
   Lest we forget—lest we forget!

   For heathen heart that puts her trust
     In reeking tube and iron shard—
   All valiant dust that builds on dust,
     And guarding calls not Thee to guard.

   For frantic boast and foolish word,
   Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord!
                                 Amen.

   The verses—as suggested by the painting by Philip Burne Jones, first
   exhibited at the new gallery in London in 1897.

   A fool there was and he made his prayer
     (Even as you and I!)
   To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair
   (We called her the woman who did not care),
   But the fool he called her his lady fair
     (Even as you and I!)

   Oh the years we waste and the tears we waste
     And the work of our head and hand,
   Belong to the woman who did not know
   (And now we know that she never could know)
     And did not understand.

   A fool there was and his goods he spent
     (Even as you and I!)
   Honor and faith and a sure intent
   But a fool must follow his natural bent
   (And it wasn't the least what the lady meant),
     (Even as you and I!)

   Oh the toil we lost and the spoil we lost
     And the excellent things we planned,
   Belong to the woman who didn't know why
   (And now we know she never knew why)
     And did not understand.

   The fool we stripped to his foolish hide
     (Even as you and I!)
   Which she might have seen when she threw him aside—
   (But it isn't on record the lady tried)
   So some of him lived but the most of him died—
     (Even as you and I!)

   And it isn't the shame and it isn't the blame
     That stings like a white hot brand.

   It's coming to know that she never knew why
   (Seeing at last she could never know why)
     And never could understand.

   Will you conquer my heart with your beauty; my soul going out from afar?
   Shall I fall to your hand as a victim of crafty and cautious shikar?

   Have I met you and passed you already, unknowing, unthinking and blind?
   Shall I meet you next session at Simla, O sweetest and best of your kind?

   Does the P. and O. bear you to meward, or, clad in short frocks in the West,
   Are you growing the charms that shall capture and torture the heart in my
   breast?

   Will you stay in the Plains till September—my passion as warm as the day?
   Will you bring me to book on the Mountains, or where the thermantidotes play?

   When the light of your eyes shall make pallid the mean lesser lights I pursue,
   And the charm of your presence shall lure me from love of the gay “thirteen-
   two”;

   When the peg and the pig-skin shall please not; when I buy me Calcutta-build
   clothes;
   When I quit the Delight of Wild Asses; forswearing the swearing of oaths;
   As a deer to the hand of the hunter when I turn 'mid the gibes of my friends;
   When the days of my freedom are numbered, and the life of the bachelor ends.

   Ah, Goddess! child, spinster, or widow—as of old on Mars Hill whey they
   raised
   To the God that they knew not an altar—so I, a young Pagan, have praised
   The Goddess I know not nor worship; yet, if half that men tell me be true,
   You will come in the future, and therefore these verses are written to you.

   [Allowing for the difference 'twixt prose and rhymed exaggeration, this ought
   to reproduce the sense of what Sir A— told the nation sometime ago, when the
   Government struck from our incomes two per cent.]

   Now the New Year, reviving last Year's Debt,
   The Thoughtful Fisher casteth wide his Net;
     So I with begging Dish and ready Tongue
   Assail all Men for all that I can get.

   Imports indeed are gone with all their Dues—
   Lo! Salt a Lever that I dare not use,
     Nor may I ask the Tillers in Bengal—
   Surely my Kith and Kin will not refuse!

   Pay—and I promise by the Dust of Spring,
   Retrenchment.  If my promises can bring
     Comfort, Ye have Them now a thousandfold—
   By Allah! I will promise Anything!

   Indeed, indeed, Retrenchment oft before
   I swore—but did I mean it when I swore?
     And then, and then, We wandered to the Hills,
   And so the Little Less became Much More.

   Whether a Boileaugunge or Babylon,
   I know not how the wretched Thing is done,
     The Items of Receipt grow surely small;
   The Items of Expense mount one by one.

   I cannot help it. What have I to do
   With One and Five, or Four, or Three, or Two?
     Let Scribes spit Blood and Sulphur as they please,
   Or Statesmen call me foolish—Heed not you.

   Behold, I promise—Anything You will.
   Behold, I greet you with an empty Till—
     Ah! Fellow-Sinners, of your Charity
   Seek not the Reason of the Dearth, but fill.

   For if I sinned and fell, where lies the Gain
   Of Knowledge? Would it ease you of your Pain
     To know the tangled Threads of Revenue,
   I ravel deeper in a hopeless Skein?

   “Who hath not Prudence”—what was it I said,
   Of Her who paints her Eyes and tires Her Head,
     And gibes and mocks the People in the Street,
   And fawns upon them for Her thriftless Bread?

   Accursed is She of Eve's daughters—She
   Hath cast off Prudence, and Her End shall be
     Destruction... Brethren, of your Bounty
   Some portion of your daily Bread to Me.

     A much-discerning Public hold
       The Singer generally sings
     And prints and sells his past for gold.

     Whatever I may here disclaim,
       The very clever folk I sing to
       Will most indubitably cling to
     Their pet delusion, just the same.

   I had seen, as the dawn was breaking
     And I staggered to my rest,
   Tari Devi softly shaking
     From the Cart Road to the crest.

   I had seen the spurs of Jakko
     Heave and quiver, swell and sink.
   Was it Earthquake or tobacco,
     Day of Doom, or Night of Drink?

   In the full, fresh fragrant morning
     I observed a camel crawl,
   Laws of gravitation scorning,
     On the ceiling and the wall;
   Then I watched a fender walking,
     And I heard grey leeches sing,
   And a red-hot monkey talking
     Did not seem the proper thing.

   Then a Creature, skinned and crimson,
     Ran about the floor and cried,
   And they said that I had the “jims” on,
     And they dosed me with bromide,
   And they locked me in my bedroom—
     Me and one wee Blood Red Mouse—
   Though I said: “To give my head room
     You had best unroof the house.”

   But my words were all unheeded,
     Though I told the grave M.D.
   That the treatment really needed
     Was a dip in open sea
   That was lapping just below me,
     Smooth as silver, white as snow,
   And it took three men to throw me
     When I found I could not go.

   Half the night I watched the Heavens
     Fizz like '81 champagne—
   Fly to sixes and to sevens,
     Wheel and thunder back again;
   And when all was peace and order
     Save one planet nailed askew,
   Much I wept because my warder
     Would not let me set it true.

   After frenzied hours of waiting,
     When the Earth and Skies were dumb,
   Pealed an awful voice dictating
     An interminable sum,
   Changing to a tangle story—
     “What she said you said I said”—
   Till the Moon arose in glory,
     And I found her... in my head;

   Then a Face came, blind and weeping,
     And It couldn't wipe its eyes,
   And It muttered I was keeping
     Back the moonlight from the skies;
   So I patted it for pity,
     But it whistled shrill with wrath,
   And a huge black Devil City
     Poured its peoples on my path.

   So I fled with steps uncertain
     On a thousand-year long race,
   But the bellying of the curtain
     Kept me always in one place;
   While the tumult rose and maddened
     To the roar of Earth on fire,
   Ere it ebbed and sank and saddened
     To a whisper tense as wire.

   In tolerable stillness
     Rose one little, little star,
   And it chuckled at my illness,
     And it mocked me from afar;
   And its brethren came and eyed me,
     Called the Universe to aid,
   Till I lay, with naught to hide me,
     'Neath the Scorn of All Things Made.

   Dun and saffron, robed and splendid,
     Broke the solemn, pitying Day,
   And I knew my pains were ended,
     And I turned and tried to pray;
   But my speech was shattered wholly,
     And I wept as children weep.

   Till the dawn-wind, softly, slowly,
     Brought to burning eyelids sleep.

   I go to concert, party, ball—
     What profit is in these?
   I sit alone against the wall
     And strive to look at ease.

   The incense that is mine by right
     They burn before her shrine;
   And that's because I'm seventeen
     And She is forty-nine.

   I cannot check my girlish blush,
     My color comes and goes;
   I redden to my finger-tips,
     And sometimes to my nose.

   But She is white where white should be,
     And red where red should shine.
   The blush that flies at seventeen
     Is fixed at forty-nine.

   I wish I had Her constant cheek;
     I wish that I could sing
   All sorts of funny little songs,
     Not quite the proper thing.

   I'm very gauche and very shy,
     Her jokes aren't in my line;
   And, worst of all, I'm seventeen
     While She is forty-nine.

   The young men come, the young men go
     Each pink and white and neat,
   She's older than their mothers, but
     They grovel at Her feet.

   They walk beside Her 'rickshaw wheels—
     None ever walk by mine;
   And that's because I'm seventeen
     And She is forty-nine.

   She rides with half a dozen men,
     (She calls them “boys” and “mashers”)
   I trot along the Mall alone;
     My prettiest frocks and sashes
   Don't help to fill my programme-card,
     And vainly I repine
   From ten to two A.M. Ah me!
     Would I were forty-nine!

   She calls me “darling,” “pet,” and “dear,”
      And “sweet retiring maid.”
    I'm always at the back, I know,
     She puts me in the shade.

   She introduces me to men,
     “Cast” lovers, I opine,
   For sixty takes to seventeen,
     Nineteen to forty-nine.

   But even She must older grow
     And end Her dancing days,
   She can't go on forever so
     At concerts, balls and plays.

   One ray of priceless hope I see
     Before my footsteps shine;
   Just think, that She'll be eighty-one
     When I am forty-nine.

   Eyes of grey—a sodden quay,
   Driving rain and falling tears,
   As the steamer wears to sea
   In a parting storm of cheers.

     Sing, for Faith and Hope are high—
     None so true as you and I—
     Sing the Lovers' Litany:
     “Love like ours can never die!”

   Eyes of black—a throbbing keel,
   Milky foam to left and right;
   Whispered converse near the wheel
   In the brilliant tropic night.

     Cross that rules the Southern Sky!
     Stars that sweep and wheel and fly,
     Hear the Lovers' Litany:
     Love like ours can never die!”

   Eyes of brown—a dusty plain
   Split and parched with heat of June,
   Flying hoof and tightened rein,
   Hearts that beat the old, old tune.

     Side by side the horses fly,
     Frame we now the old reply
     Of the Lovers' Litany:
     “Love like ours can never die!”

   Eyes of blue—the Simla Hills
   Silvered with the moonlight hoar;
   Pleading of the waltz that thrills,
   Dies and echoes round Benmore.

     “Mabel,” “Officers,” “Goodbye,”
      Glamour, wine, and witchery—
     On my soul's sincerity,
     “Love like ours can never die!”

   Maidens of your charity,
   Pity my most luckless state.
   Four times Cupid's debtor I—
   Bankrupt in quadruplicate.

     Yet, despite this evil case,
     And a maiden showed me grace,
     Four-and-forty times would I
     Sing the Lovers' Litany:
     “Love like ours can never die!”

   (“Saint @Proxed's ever was the Church for peace”)

   If down here I chance to die,
     Solemnly I beg you take
   All that is left of “I”
      To the Hills for old sake's sake,
   Pack me very thoroughly
     In the ice that used to slake
   Pegs I drank when I was dry—
     This observe for old sake's sake.

   To the railway station hie,
     There a single ticket take
   For Umballa—goods-train—I
     Shall not mind delay or shake.

   I shall rest contentedly
     Spite of clamor coolies make;
   Thus in state and dignity
     Send me up for old sake's sake.

   Next the sleepy Babu wake,
     Book a Kalka van “for four.”
    Few, I think, will care to make
     Journeys with me any more
   As they used to do of yore.

     I shall need a “special” break—
   Thing I never took before—
     Get me one for old sake's sake.

   After that—arrangements make.

     No hotel will take me in,
   And a bullock's back would break
     'Neath the teak and leaden skin
   Tonga ropes are frail and thin,
     Or, did I a back-seat take,
   In a tonga I might spin,—
     Do your best for old sake's sake.

   After that—your work is done.

     Recollect a Padre must
   Mourn the dear departed one—
     Throw the ashes and the dust.

   Don't go down at once. I trust
     You will find excuse to “snake
   Three days' casual on the bust.”
      Get your fun for old sake's sake.

   I could never stand the Plains.
     Think of blazing June and May
   Think of those September rains
     Yearly till the Judgment Day!
   I should never rest in peace,
     I should sweat and lie awake.

   Rail me then, on my decease,
     To the Hills for old sake's sake.

   It was an artless Bandar, and he danced upon a pine,
   And much I wondered how he lived, and where the beast might dine,
   And many, many other things, till, o'er my morning smoke,
   I slept the sleep of idleness and dreamt that Bandar spoke.

   He said: “O man of many clothes! Sad crawler on the Hills!
   Observe, I know not Ranken's shop, nor Ranken's monthly bills;
   I take no heed to trousers or the coats that you call dress;
   Nor am I plagued with little cards for little drinks at Mess.

   “I steal the bunnia's grain at morn, at noon and eventide,
   (For he is fat and I am spare), I roam the mountain side,
   I follow no man's carriage, and no, never in my life
   Have I flirted at Peliti's with another Bandar's wife.

   “O man of futile fopperies—unnecessary wraps;
   I own no ponies in the hills, I drive no tall-wheeled traps;
   I buy me not twelve-button gloves, 'short-sixes' eke, or rings,
   Nor do I waste at Hamilton's my wealth on 'pretty things.'

   “I quarrel with my wife at home, we never fight abroad;
   But Mrs. B. has grasped the fact I am her only lord.

   I never heard of fever—dumps nor debts depress my soul;
   And I pity and despise you!” Here he poached my breakfast-roll.

   His hide was very mangy, and his face was very red,
   And ever and anon he scratched with energy his head.
   His manners were not always nice, but how my spirit cried
   To be an artless Bandar loose upon the mountain side!

   So I answered: “Gentle Bandar, an inscrutable Decree
   Makes thee a gleesome fleasome Thou, and me a wretched Me.
   Go! Depart in peace, my brother, to thy home amid the pine;
   Yet forget not once a mortal wished to change his lot for thine.”

   Argument.—The Indian Government being minded to discover the economic
   condition of their lands, sent a Committee to inquire into it; and saw that it
   was good.

   Scene.—The wooded heights of Simla. The Incarnation of
   the Government of India in the raiment of the Angel of Plenty
   sings, to pianoforte accompaniment:—

   “How sweet is the shepherd's sweet life!
     From the dawn to the even he strays—
   And his tongue shall be filled with praise.

     (adagio dim.) Filled with praise!”

   (largendo con sp.) Now this is the position,
                     Go make an inquisition
                     Into their real condition
                       As swiftly as ye may.

                 (p) Ay, paint our swarthy billions
                     The richest of vermillions
                     Ere two well-led cotillions
                       Have danced themselves away.

   Turkish Patrol, as able and intelligent Investigators wind
                   down the Himalayas:—

   What is the state of the Nation? What is its occupation?
   Hi! get along, get along, get along—lend us the information!
   (dim.) Census the byle and the yabu—capture a first-class Babu,
     Set him to file Gazetteers—Gazetteers...

                   (ff) What is the state of the Nation, etc., etc.

   Interlude, from Nowhere in Particular, to stringed and Oriental
   instruments.

   Our cattle reel beneath the yoke they bear—
     The earth is iron and the skies are brass—
   And faint with fervour of the flaming air
     The languid hours pass.

   The well is dry beneath the village tree—
     The young wheat withers ere it reach a span,
   And belts of blinding sand show cruelly
     Where once the river ran.

   Pray, brothers, pray, but to no earthly King—
     Lift up your hands above the blighted grain,
   Look westward—if they please, the Gods shall bring
     Their mercy with the rain.

   Look westward—bears the blue no brown cloud-bank?
     Nay, it is written—wherefore should we fly?
   On our own field and by our cattle's flank
     Lie down, lie down to die!

                           Semi-Chorus

           By the plumed heads of Kings
                           Waving high,
           Where the tall corn springs
                           O'er the dead.

           If they rust or rot we die,
           If they ripen we are fed.

           Very mighty is the power of our Kings!

   Triumphal return to Simla of the Investigators, attired after
     the manner of Dionysus, leading a pet tiger-cub in wreaths
     of rhubarb-leaves, symbolical of India under medical treatment.

     They sing:—

   We have seen, we have written—behold it, the proof of our manifold toil!
   In their hosts they assembled and told it—the tale of the Sons of the Soil.

   We have said of the Sickness—“Where is it?”—and of Death—“It is far from
   our ken,”—
   We have paid a particular visit to the affluent children of men.

   We have trodden the mart and the well-curb—we have stooped to the field and
   the byre;
   And the King may the forces of Hell curb for the People have all they desire!

           Castanets and step-dance:—

   Oh, the dom and the mag and the thakur and the thag,
     And the nat and the brinjaree,
   And the bunnia and the ryot are as happy and as quiet
   And as plump as they can be!

   Yes, the jain and the jat in his stucco-fronted hut,
     And the bounding bazugar,
   By the favour of the King, are as fat as anything,
     They are—they are—they are!

   Recitative, Government of India, with white satin wings  and electro-plated
      harp:—

   How beautiful upon the Mountains—in peace reclining,
   Thus to be assured that our people are unanimously dining.

   And though there are places not so blessed as others in natural advantages,
   which, after all, was only to be expected,
   Proud and glad are we to congratulate you upon the work you have thus ably
   effected.

   (Cres.) How be-ewtiful upon the Mountains!

   Hired Band,  brasses only, full chorus:—

           God bless the Squire
           And all his rich relations
           Who teach us poor people
           We eat our proper rations—
                   We eat our proper rations,
                   In spite of inundations,
                   Malarial exhalations,
                   And casual starvations,
           We have, we have, they say we have—
           We have our proper rations!

   Chorus of the Crystallised Facts

           Before the beginning of years
           There came to the rule of the State
           Men with a pair of shears,
           Men with an Estimate—
           Strachey with Muir for leaven,
           Lytton with locks that fell,
           Ripon fooling with Heaven,
           And Temple riding like H—ll!
           And the bigots took in hand
           Cess and the falling of rain,
           And the measure of sifted sand
           The dealer puts in the grain—
           Imports by land and sea,
           To uttermost decimal worth,
           And registration—free—
           In the houses of death and of birth.

           And fashioned with pens and paper,
           And fashioned in black and white,
           With Life for a flickering taper
           And Death for a blazing light—
           With the Armed and the Civil Power,
           That his strength might endure for a span—
           From Adam's Bridge to Peshawur,
           The Much Administered Man.

           In the towns of the North and the East,
           They gathered as unto rule,
           They bade him starve his priest
           And send his children to school.

           Railways and roads they wrought,
           For the needs of the soil within;
           A time to squabble in court,
           A time to bear and to grin.

           And gave him peace in his ways,
           Jails—and Police to fight,
           Justice—at length of days,
           And Right—and Might in the Right.

           His speech is of mortgaged bedding,
           On his kine he borrows yet,
           At his heart is his daughter's wedding,
           In his eye foreknowledge of debt.

           He eats and hath indigestion,
           He toils and he may not stop;
           His life is a long-drawn question
           Between a crop and a crop.

   Jane Austen Beecher Stowe de Rouse
     Was good beyond all earthly need;
   But, on the other hand, her spouse
     Was very, very bad indeed.

   He smoked cigars, called churches slow,
   And raced—but this she did not know.

   For Belial Machiavelli kept
     The little fact a secret, and,
   Though o'er his minor sins she wept,
     Jane Austen did not understand
   That Lilly—thirteen-two and bay
   Absorbed one-half her husband's pay.

   She was so good, she made him worse;
     (Some women are like this, I think;)
   He taught her parrot how to curse,
     Her Assam monkey how to drink.

   He vexed her righteous soul until
   She went up, and he went down hill.

   Then came the crisis, strange to say,
     Which turned a good wife to a better.

   A telegraphic peon, one day,
     Brought her—now, had it been a letter
   For Belial Machiavelli, I
   Know Jane would just have let it lie.

   But 'twas a telegram instead,
     Marked “urgent,” and her duty plain
   To open it. Jane Austen read:
     “Your Lilly's got a cough again.
   Can't understand why she is kept
   At your expense.” Jane Austen wept.

   It was a misdirected wire.
     Her husband was at Shaitanpore.
   She spread her anger, hot as fire,
     Through six thin foreign sheets or more.

   Sent off that letter, wrote another
   To her solicitor—and mother.

   Then Belial Machiavelli saw
     Her error and, I trust, his own,
   Wired to the minion of the Law,
     And traveled wifeward—not alone.

   For Lilly—thirteen-two and bay—
   Came in a horse-box all the way.

   There was a scene—a weep or two—
     With many kisses. Austen Jane
   Rode Lilly all the season through,
     And never opened wires again.

   She races now with Belial. This
   Is very sad, but so it is.