L'Envoi

Princess, behold our ancient state Has clean departed; and we see 'Twas Idleness we took for Fate

That bound light bonds on you and me. Amen! Here ends the comedy

Where it began in all good will. Since Love and Leave together flee Like driven mist on Jakko Hill!

THE PLEA OF THE SIMLA DANCERS

Too late, alas! the song

To remedy the wrong;

The rooms are taken from us, swept and garnished for their fate,

But these tear-besprinkled pages

Shall attest to future ages

That we cried against the crime of it-too late, alas! too late!

HAT have we ever done to bear this grudge?' Was there no room save only in Benmore For docket, duftar, and for office drudge, That you usurp our smoothest dancing-floor? Must babus do their work on polished teak? Are ball-rooms fittest for the ink you spill? Was there no other cheaper house to seek? You might have left them all at Strawberry Hill.

We never harmed you! Innocent our guise,
Dainty our shining feet, our voices low;

And we revolved to divers melodies,

And we were happy but a year ago.

To-night, the moon that watched our lightsome wilesThat beamed upon us through the deodars

Is wan with gazing on official files,

And desecrating desks disgust the stars.

Nay! by the memory of tuneful nights—
Nay! by the witchery of flying feet-
Nay! by the glamour of foredone delights-
By all things merry, musical, and meet—
By wine that sparkled, and by sparkling eyes-
By wailing waltz-by reckless gallop's strain—
By dim verandas and by soft replies,

Give us our ravished ball-room back again.

Or-hearken to the curse we lay on you!

The ghosts of waltzes shall perplex your brain, And murmurs of past merriment pursue

Your 'wildered clerks that they indite in vain; And when you count your poor Provincial millions, The only figures that your pen shall frame Shall be the figures of dear, dear cotillions Danced out in tumult long before you came.

Yea! 'See Saw' shall upset your estimates,
'Dream Faces' shall your heavy heads bemuse,
Because your hand, unheeding, desecrates
Our temple fit for higher, worthier use.
And all the long verandas, eloquent

With echoes of a score of Simla years,
Shall plague you with unbidden sentiment—
Babbling of kisses, laughter, love, and tears.

So shall you mazed amid old memories stand,
So shall you toil, and shall accomplish naught.
And ever in your ears a phantom Band

Shall blare away the staid official thought.

THE PLEA OF THE SIMLA DANCERS Wherefore-and ere this awful curse be spoken, Cast out your swarthy, sacrilegious train,

And give―ere dancing cease and hearts be brokenGive us our ravished ball-room back again!

'AS THE BELL CLINKS'

S I left the Halls at Lumley, rose the vision of a comely

Maid last season worshipped dumbly, watched with fervour from afar;

And I wondered idly, blindly, if the maid would greet me kindly.

That was all-the rest was settled by the clinking tonga

bar.

Yea, my life and hers were coupled by the tonga coupling-bar.

For my misty meditation, at the second changingstation,

Suffered sudden dislocation, fled before the tuneless jar Of a Wagner obbligato, scherzo, double-hand staccato, Played on either pony's saddle by the clacking tongabar

Played with human speech, I fancied, by the jigging, jolting bar.

'She was sweet,' thought I, 'last season, but 'twere surely wild unreason

Such a tiny hope to freeze on as was offered by my Star, When she whispered, something sadly:-"I-we feel your going badly!"