Go to the land of Jungles and of vast hills,
And tall bamboos—may none bamboozle thee!
Go gaze upon their Elephants and Castles,
And think of me!
Go where a cook must always be a currier,
And parch the pepper’d palate like a pea,
Go where the fierce musquito is a worrier,
And think of me!
Go where the maiden on a marriage plan goes,
Consign’d for wedlock to Calcutta’s quay,
Where woman goes for mart, the same as mangoes,
And think of me!
Go where the sun is very hot and fervent,
Go to the land of pagod and rupee,
Where every black will be your slave and servant,
And think of me!
SIR JOHN BOWRING.
O Bowring, man of many tongues,
(All over tongues like rumour)
This tributary verse belongs
To paint his learned humour;
All kinds of gabs he talks, I wis,
From Latin down to Scottish;
As fluent as a parrot is,
But far more Polly-glottish!
No grammar too abstruse he meets
However dark and verby,—
He gossips Greek about the streets,
And often Russ—in urbe—:
Strange tongues whate’er you do them call,
In short the man is able
To tell you what’s o’clock in all
The dialects of Babel.
Take him on ‘Change; try Portuguese,
The Moorish and the Spanish,
Polish, Hungarian, Tyrolese,
The Swedish and the Danish;
Try him with these and fifty such,
His skill will ne’er diminish,
Although you should begin in Dutch
And end (like me) in Finnish.