The thistle, shamrock—leave me those;
There’s sense in them—and, yes, the rose;
’Twill symbolise—its thorns at least—
Our future pathway in the East;
The shamrock, too, recals to thought
The “false Gibraltar” we have bought;
And I would spare the thistle’s loss
To those who cheered at Charing Cross,—
These I can stand, but laurel, no;
The laurel’s hardly apropos;