He had said, in a Viceregal homily, (Alas for the sternness of rhyme!) 'I surmise British law's an anomaly, Give place to Bengal for a time.' These words were the pith of his homily And Calcutta considered them crime. From the City of Baboos and bustees, From that sorrowing City of Drains, Came the cry:—'Oh my friend, let us trust he's But mad, through long stay in the plains; Perplexed with the stench of our bustees, His reason has reeled in the plains.' And the Planters who plant the Mofussil, With Indigo, Coffee, and Tea, Cried out, when they heard :—'Blow that cuss he'll Come down on such folk as we be, Our coolies will "boss" the Mofussil, With his pestilent A.C.P.C.' But the Baboos that browsed in each office Of Subordinate Civil Employ Cried 'Hurrah for our Viceregal novice! Hurrah for the Brahminee boy! Let the "mean white" be silent, and doff his Pith hat to Brahminee boy!' And the papers they print in Calcutta, And the journals men read in Madras, Were known in their pages to utter Some hints that he might be an ... ! And this spread, from the sinks of Calcutta, And the swamps of benighted Madras, Till the thought set the land in a flutter— 'Ye Gods! was His Lordship an ... ?' For his notions of natives were curious, So India objected, and rose, And, when India was properly furious, He remarked. 'This discussion I close, The heat to my health is injurious, I hie to Himalayan snows.' With the tact that belonged to his station, With a suavity solely his own, He had set by the ears half a nation And left it—to simmer alone. With his maudlin ma-bap legislation, He had played merry Hades and—flown.
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