*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!