GRAECULUS ESURIENS

  There came a Grecian Admiral to pale Britannia’s shore—­
  In Eighteen Ninety-eight he came, and anchored off the Nore;
  An ultimatum he despatched (I give the text complete),
  Addressing it “To Kurio, the Premier, Downing-street.” [1]

  “Whereas the sons of Liberty with indignation view
  The number of dependencies which governed are by you—­
  With Hellas (Freedom’s chosen land) we purpose to unite
  Some part of those dependencies—­let’s say the Isle of Wight.”

  “The Isle of Wight!” said Parliament, and shuddered at the word,
  “Her Majesty’s at Osborne, too—­of course, the thing’s absurd!”
  And this response Lord Salisbury eventually gave: 
  “Such transfers must attended be by difficulties grave.”

  “My orders,” said the Admiral, “are positive and flat: 
  I am not in the least deterred by obstacles like that: 
  We’re really only acting in the interests of peace: 
  Expansion is a nation’s law—­we’ve aims sublime in Greece.”

  With that Britannia blazed amain with patriotic flames! 
  They built a hundred ironclads and launched them in the Thames: 
  They girded on their fathers’ swords, both commoners and peers;
  They mobilized an Army Corps, and drilled the Volunteers!

  The Labour Party armed itself, invasion’s path to bar,
  “Truth” and the “Daily Chronicle” proclaimed a Righteous War;
  Sir William Harcourt stumped the towns that sacred fire to fan,
  And Mr Gladstone every day sent telegrams from Cannes.

  But ere they marched to meet the foe and drench the land with gore,
  Outspake that Grecian Admiral—­from somewhere near the Nore—­
  And “Ere,” he said, “hostilities are ordered to commence,
  Just hear a last appeal unto your educated sense:—­

  “You can’t intend,” he said, said he, “to turn your Maxims on
  The race that fought at Salamis, that bled at Marathon! 
  You can’t propose with brutal force to drive from off your seas
  The men of Homer’s gifted line—­the sons of Socrates!”

  Britannia heard the patriot’s plea, she checked her murderous plans: 
  Homer’s a name to conjure with, ’mong British artisans: 
  Her Army too, profoundly moved by arguments like these,
  Said ’e’d be blowed afore ’e’d fight the sons of Socrates.

  They cast away their fathers’ swords, those commoners and peers,—­
  Demobilized their Army Corps—­dismissed their Volunteers: 
  Soft Sentiment o’erthrew the bars that nations disunite,
  And Greece, in Freedom’s sacred name, annexed the Isle of Wight.

[1.  Transcriber’s note:  The phrase “To Kurio” was transliterated from the Greek as follows:  “To”—­Tau, omega; “Kurio”—­Kappa, upsilon, rho, iota, omega.]

THE ROAD TO RENOWN