T.M.G.
Farewell, my Constantine! A guardian navy
Facilitates your exit on the blue;
For Greece has been this long while in the gravy
And he that put her there was plainly you;
"Tino Must Go!" was writ for all to see,
Or, briefly, "T.M.G."
Whither, dear Sir, do you propose to sally?
To Switzerland's recuperative air,
To sip condensed milk in a private chalet
Or pluck the lissom chamois from his lair,
Or on the summit of a neutral Alp
Recline your crownless scalp?
Or did you ask from him you love so dearly
A royal haven fenced from rude alarms,
Even though William should reserve you merely
A bedroom at "The Hohenzollern Arms,"
Having for poor relations on the loose
No sort of further use?
Beware! I gather he might clasp his Tino
Only too warmly to his heaving chest,
Saying, "O how reward such merits? We know!
Thou shalt command an Army in the West!
Yes, thou shalt bear upon the British Front
The pick of all the brunt."
Frankly, if I were you, I wouldn't chance it.
Fighting has never really been your forte;
Witness Larissa, and your rapid transit,
Chivied by slow foot-sloggers of the Porte;
Far better make for Denmark o'er the foam;
There is no place like home.
Try some ancestral palace, well-appointed;
For choice the one where Hamlet nursed his spite,
Who found the times had grown a bit disjointed
And he was not the man to put 'em right;
And there consult on that enchanted shore
The ghosts of Elsinore.
O.S.