Classic Poem

When told that twenty thousand Japs
Are drowned in a typhoon,
We feel a trifle shocked, perhaps,
But neither faint nor swoon.
" Dear me! How tragic! " we repeat;
" Ah, well! Such things must be! "
Our ordinary lunch we eat
And make a hearty tea;
Such loss of life (with shame I write)
Creates no loss of appetite!

When on a Rocky Mountain ranch
Two hundred souls, all told,
Are buried in an avalanche,
The tidings leave us cold.
" Poor fellows! " we remark. " Poor things!
All crushed to little bits! "
Then go to Bunty Pulls the Strings ,
Have supper at the Ritz,
And never even think again
Of land-slides in the State of Maine!

But when the paper we take in
Describes how Mr Jones
Has slipped on a banana-skin
And broken sev'ral bones,
" Good Heavens! What a world! " we shout;
" Disasters never cease!
What is the Government about?
And where are the Police? "
Distraught by such appalling news
All creature comforts we refuse!

Though plagues exterminate the Lapp,
And famines ravage Spain,
They move us not like some mishap
To a suburban train.
Each foreign tale of fire or flood,
How trumpery it grows
Beside a broken collar-stud,
A smut upon the nose!
For Charity (alas! how true!)
Begins At Home — and ends there, too!