Its leading characters are wise and witty;
Substantial men of birth and education
With wide experience of administration,
They know the manners of a modern city.
Only the servants enter unexpected;
Their silence has a fresh dramatic use:
Here in the East the bankers have erected
A worthy temple to the Comic Muse.
Ten thousand miles from home and What’s-her-name,
The bugle on the Late Victorian hill
Puts out the soldier s light; off-stage, a war
Thuds like the slamming of a distant door :
We cannot postulate a General Will;
For what we are, we have ourselves to blame.