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 galop'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 nought,
And ever in your ears a phantom Band
Shall blare away the staid official thought.
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