English Roses by F. Harald Williams [i.e. F. W. O. Ward] |
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THE CONCERT OF EUROPE. |
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 | English Roses |  |
THE CONCERT OF EUROPE.
The Frenchman tootles on his horn;The Kaiser beats the drum of scorn;
The Tsar (who would annex the moon)
Plays in the distance his bassoon;
The Briton on a trumpet blares,
And shudders at his Foreign Shares;
The Austrian Emperor won't be mute,
With variations on the flute;
And Italy in sorrow sends
With organ (but no dividends)
A monkey and her Nicolo;
While Turkey in the Concert strives
And fiddles on her subjects' lives,
Though Hellas pipes the piccolo.
For all (remembering sweet per cents)
Are playing different instruments
To different tunes, in sharps and flats,
Like thirty thousand squalling cats,
With thirty thousand kettles tied
Upon their tails—and thus allied.
But from this harmony of fears
And doubts that darken with the years,
Which with hot shrapnel soon may shiver us,
May God in mercy now deliver us.
| English Roses | |