An exile, I would fain forget
That circumstance hath put me down
Quite close to places like Tibet,
But very far from London town.
And though the outlook's rather drear
I sometimes fancy I detect
A sort of Cockney atmosphere,
A Metropolitan effect.
Behind my chair in solemn state
The bearer and khansama stand,
Swart replicas of those who wait
In Piccadilly or the Strand.
My punkah brings a grateful wind
To cheeks climatically brown'd,
A fitful gust that calls to mind
The draughts about the Underground.
And though they spoil my morning rest
I like to lie awake and hark
To parrakeets whose notes suggest
Their captive kin in Regent's Park.
About my house the pigeons roost,
They perch upon the compound walls,
Own brothers to the friends who used
To flap me greeting from St. Paul's.
In yellow waves the dawn-mist drives
Across the paddy-field and jogs
The memory of one who strives
To reconstruct his London fogs.
And when I hear a bullock-cart
Go rumbling 'neath its harvest truss
The echo wakens in my heart
The music of the omnibus.
And thus it is I've learned to find
A remedy for things that irk;
My desert fades and with a kind
Of cinematographic jerk--
"Urbs errat ante oculos;"
Then, Fortune, send me where you list,
I care not, London holds me close,
An exile, yet an optimist.
J. M. SYMNS.
Aug. 2, 1911.