* THE SONG OF THE TOWN *

Sing hey! for the sand-freckled plain;

Sing ho! for the flower-flushed valley;

A song for the ship-sprinkled main,

And the sports where the wanderers rally,

A song for the lawn sloping down —

The lawn with its terrace and fountain,

But here's a song of the square white Town

By the mist-wrapped, cloud-capped mountain!

The whitewashed, square-cut town,

By the grey-green wind-swept sea;

The moving throng,

And the motor gong,

These sing the song for me!

Sing hey! for the Town and its folk,

The comers, the goers, the stayers;

The just arrived waster, dead-broke,

The homeward-bound mummers and players;

The white man suspiciously dark!

The trooper-man, newly recruited;

The hand-bagged and frock-coated clerk,

The pioneer corded and booted!

The motley-peopled town!

Its raw and cultured folk,

Live, work, and play

‘ Twixt Mount and Bay,

And bear one equal yoke.

Sing hey! for the Town, and its dress,

The garbs of the twenty-one nations:

The Kafir in blanket — and less,

The lady in Paris‘ creations’;

The-man-about-town, rather loud,

The nigger in checks somewhat rasher;

Here, fez to the turban is bow'd,

There, top-hat comes off to the‘ smasher.’

The particoloured town,

Where plush and broadcloth meet:

Where Islam's green

And Worth-wrought sheen

Rub textures in the street!

Sing hey! for the Town, as a town,

A song of its bricks and its plaster;

The slum that is mouldering down —

The mansion that's rising the faster.

Sing hey! for its one-storied past,

Be-flagged, and be-stoeped, and be-whitened;

Its five-storied future more vast,

Its breadth to be broadened and heightened.

The grim old, prim old town,

A brand-new vestment wears,

And arc-lights purr

Where blue-gums were,

And the blanket-Kafir stares!