O Euclid, luckiest of men!
You knew no English interloper;
For Allah's Garden was not then
The pleasure-ground of Alleh Sloper,
Nor (broth-like) had your country's looks
Been spoilt by an excess of "Cooks."
The Nile to your untutored ears
Discoursed in dull but tender tones;
Not yours the modern Dahabeahs,
Supplied with strident gramophones,
Imploring, in a loud refrain,
Bill Bailey to come home again.
Your cars, the older-fashioned sort,
And drawn, perhaps, by alligators,
Were not the modern Juggernaut-
Child-dog-and-space-obliterators,
Those "stormy petrols" of the land
Which deal decease on either hand.
No European tourist wags
Defiled the desert's dusky face
With orange peel and paper bags,
Those emblems of a cultured race;
Or cut the noble name of Jones,
On tombs which held a monarch's bones.
O Euclid! Could you see to-day
The sunny clime you once frequented,
And note the way we moderns play
The game you thoughtfully invented,
The knowledge of your guilt would force yer
To feelings of internal nausea!
J. M. Barrie
HE briny tears unbidden start,
At mention of my hero's name!
Was ever set so huge a heart
Within so small a frame?
So much of tenderness and grace
Confined in such a slender space?