Euclid

When Egypt was a first-class Pow'r —

When Ptolemy was King, that is,

Whose benefices used to show'r

On all the local charities,

And by his liberal subscriptions

Was always spoiling the Egyptians —

The Alexandrine School enjoyed

A proud and primary position

For training scholars not devoid

Of geometric erudition;

Where arithmetical fanatics

Could even live in ( mathem ) - attics.

The best informed Historians name

This Institution the possessor

Of one who occupied with fame

The post of principal Professor,

Who had a more expansive brain

Than any man — before Hall Caine.

No complex sums of huge amounts

Perplexed his algebraic knowledge;

With ease he balanced the accounts

Of his ( at times insolvent ) College;

He was, without the least romance,

A very Blondin of Finance.

In pencil, on his shirt-cuff, he,

Without a moment's hesitation,

Elucidated easily

The most elab'rate calculation

( His washing got, I need n't mention,

The local laundry's best attention ).

Behind a manner mild as mouse,

Blue-spectacled and inoffensive,

He hid a judgment and a nous

As overwhelming as extensive,

And cloaked a soul immune from wrong

Beneath an ample ong-bong-pong.

To rows of conscientious youths,

Whom‘ twas his duty to take care of,

He loved to prove the truth of truths

Which they already were aware of;

They learnt to look politely bored,

Where modern students would have snored.

To show that Two and Two make Four,

That All is greater than a Portion,

Requires no dialectic lore,

Nor any cerebral contortion;

The public's faith in facts was steady,

Before the days of Mrs. Eddy.

But what was hard to overlook

( From which Society still suffers )

Was all the trouble Euclid took

To teach the game of Bridge to duffers.

Insisting, when he got a quorum,

On “Pons” ( he called it ) “Asinorum.”

The guileless methods of his game

Provoked his partner's strongest strictures;

He hardly knew the cards by name,

But realised that some had pictures;

Exhausting ev'rybody' s patience

By his perpetual revocations.

For weary hours, in deep concern,

O'er dummy's hand he loved to linger,

Denoting ev'ry card in turn,

With timid indecisive finger;

And stopped to say, at each delay,

“I really do n't know what to play!”

He sought, at any cost, to win

His ev'ry suit in turn unguarding;

He trumped his partner's “best card in,”

His own egregiously discarding;

Remarking sadly, when in doubt,

“I quite forgot the King was out!”

Alert opponents always knew,

By what the look upon his face was,

When safety lay in leading through,

And where, of course, the fatal ace was;

Assuring the complete successes

Of bold but hazardous “finesses.”

But nowadays we find no trace,

From distant Assouan to Cairo,

To mark the place where dwelt a race

Mistaught by so absurd a tyro;

And nothing but occult inscriptions

Recall the sports of past Egyptians.

Yes, “autre temps” and “autre moeurs,”

“Ou sont indeed les neiges d'antan?”

The modern native much prefers

Debauching in some cafe chantant,

Nor ever shows the least ambition

To solve a single Proposition.

O Euclid, luckiest of men!

You knew no English interloper;

For Allah's Garden was not then

The pleasure-ground of Alleh Sloper,

Nor ( broth-like ) had your country's looks

Been spoilt by an excess of “Cooks.”

The Nile to your untutored ears

Discoursed in dull but tender tones;

Not yours the modern Dahabeahs,

Supplied with strident gramophones,

Imploring, in a loud refrain,

Bill Bailey to come home again.

Your cars, the older-fashioned sort,

And drawn, perhaps, by alligators,

Were not the modern Juggernaut-

Child-dog-and-space-obliterators,

Those “stormy petrols” of the land

Which deal decease on either hand.

No European tourist wags

Defiled the desert's dusky face

With orange peel and paper bags,

Those emblems of a cultured race;

Or cut the noble name of Jones,

On tombs which held a monarch's bones.

O Euclid! Could you see to-day

The sunny clime you once frequented,

And note the way we moderns play

The game you thoughtfully invented,

The knowledge of your guilt would force yer

To feelings of internal nausea!