The Celt in all his variants from Builth to Ballyhoo,
His mental processes are plain—one knows what he will do,
And can logically predicate his finish by his start:
But the English—ah, the English!—they are quite a race apart.
Their psychology is bovine, their outlook crude and rare;
They abandon vital matters to be tickled with a straw;
But the straw that they were tickled with—the chaff that they were fed with—
They convert into a weaver's beam to break their foeman's head with.
For undemocratic reasons and for motives not of State,
They arrive at their conclusions—largely inarticulate.
Being void of self-expression they confide their views to none;
But sometimes, in a smoking-room, one learns why things were done.
In telegraphic sentences, half swallowed at the ends,
They hint a matter's inwardness—and there the matter ends.
And while the Celt is talking from Valencia to Kirkwall,
The English—ah, the English!—don't say anything at all!
LITTLE FOXES
A TALE OF THE GIHON HUNT
A fox came out of his earth on the banks of the Great River Gihon, which waters Ethiopia. He saw a white man riding through the dry dhurra-stalks, and, that his destiny might be fulfilled, barked at him.
The rider drew rein among the villagers round his stirrup.
“What,” said he, “is that?”
“That,” said the Sheikh of the village, “is a fox, O Excellency Our Governor.”
“It is not, then, a jackal?”
“No jackal, but Abu Hussein the father of cunning.”
“Also,” the white man spoke half aloud, “I am Mudir of this Province.”