8
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,
