“WHAT have we ever done to bear this grudge?” | |
| Was there no room save only in Benmore | |
| For docket, duftar, 1 and for office-drudge, | |
| That you usurp our smoothest dancing floor? | |
| Must babus do their work on polished teak? | 5 |
| Are ballrooms fittest for the ink you spill? | |
| Was there no other cheaper house to seek? | |
| You might have left them all at Strawberry Hill. | |
| |
| We never harmed you! Innocent our guise, | |
| Dainty our shining feet, our voices low; | 10 |
| And we revolved to divers melodies, | |
| And we were happy but a year ago. | |
| To-night, the moon that watched our lightsome wiles— | |
| That beamed upon us through the deodars— | |
| Is wan with gazing on official files, | 15 |
| And desecrating desks disgust the stars. | |
| |
| Nay! by the memory of tuneful nights— | |
| Nay! by the witchery of flying feet— | |
| Nay! by the glamour of foredone delights— | |
| By all things merry, musical, and meet— | 20 |
| By wine that sparkled, and by sparkling eyes— | |
| By wailing waltz—by reckless gallop’s strain— | |
| By dim verandahs and by soft replies. | |
| Give us our ravished ballroom back again! | |
| |
| Or—hearken to the curse we lay on you! | 25 |
| The ghosts of waltzes shall perplex your brain, | |
| And murmurs of past merriment pursue | |
| Your ’wildered clerks that they indite in vain; | |
| And when you count your poor Provincial millions, | |
| The only figures that, your pen shall frame | 30 |
| Shall be the figures of dear, dear cotillions | |
| Danced out in tumult long before you came. | |
| |
| Yea! “See Saw” shall upset your estimates, | |
| “Dream Faces” shall your heavy heads bemuse. | |
| Because your hand, unheeding, desecrates | 35 |
| Our temple fit for higher, worthier use. | |
| And all the long verandahs, eloquent | |
| With echoes of a score of Simla years, | |
| Shall plague you with unbidden sentiment— | |
| Babbling of kisses, laughter, love, and tears. | 40 |
| |
| So shall you mazed amid old memories stand, | |
| So shall you toil, and shall accomplish nought. | |
| And ever in your ears a phantom Band | |
| Shall blare away the staid official thought. | |
| Wherefore—and ere this awful curse be spoken, | 45 |
| Cast out your swarthy sacrilegious train, | |
| And give—ere dancing cease and hearts be broken— | |
| Give us our ravished ballroom back again! | |
