As I left the Halls at Lumley, rose the vision of
a comely
Maid last season worshipped dumbly, watched with fervor
from afar;
And I wondered idly, blindly, if the maid would greet
me kindly.
That was all—the rest was settled by the
clinking tonga-bar.
Yea, my life and hers were coupled by the tonga coupling-bar.
For my misty meditation, at the second changin’-station,
Suffered sudden dislocation, fled before the tuneless
jar
Of a Wagner obbligato, scherzo, doublehand staccato,
Played on either pony’s saddle by the clacking
tonga-bar—
Played with human speech, I fancied, by the jigging,
jolting bar.
“She was sweet,” thought I, “last
season, but ’twere surely wild unreason
Such tiny hope to freeze on as was offered by my Star,
When she whispered, something sadly: ‘I—we
feel your going badly!’”
“And you let the chance escape you?” rapped
the rattling tonga-bar.
“What a chance and what an idiot!” clicked
the vicious tonga-bar.
Heart of man—oh, heart of putty! Had
I gone by Kakahutti,
On the old Hill-road and rutty, I had ’scaped
that fatal car.
But his fortune each must bide by, so I watched the
milestones slide by,
To “You call on Her tomorrow!”—fugue
with cymbals by the bar—
“You must call on Her tomorrow!”—post-horn
gallop by the bar.
Yet a further stage my goal on—we were
whirling down to Solon,
With a double lurch and roll on, best foot foremost,
ganz und gar—
“She was very sweet,” I hinted. “If
a kiss had been imprinted?”—
“‘Would ha’ saved a world of trouble!”
clashed the busy tonga-bar.
“’Been accepted or rejected!” banged
and clanged the tonga-bar.
Then a notion wild and daring, ’spite the income
tax’s paring,
And a hasty thought of sharing—less than
many incomes are,
Made me put a question private, you can guess what
I would drive at.
“You must work the sum to prove it,” clanked
the careless tonga-bar.
“Simple Rule of Two will prove it,” lilted
back the tonga-bar.
It was under Khyraghaut I mused. “Suppose
the maid be haughty—
(There are lovers rich—and rotty)—wait
some wealthy Avatar?
Answer monitor untiring, ’twixt the ponies twain
perspiring!”
“Faint heart never won fair lady,” creaked
the straining tonga-bar.
“Can I tell you ere you ask Her?” pounded
slow the tonga-bar.
Last, the Tara Devi turning showed the lights of Simla
burning,
Lit my little lazy yearning to a fiercer flame by
far.
As below the Mall we jingled, through my very heart
it tingled—
Did the iterated order of the threshing tonga-bar—
“Try your luck—you can’t do
better!” twanged the loosened tonga-bar.
