All streets are brightly lit; our city is kept clean;

Her Third-Class deal from greasy packs, her First bid high;

Her beggars banished to the bows have never seen

What can be done in state-rooms: no one asks why.

Lovers are writing latters, athletes playing ball,

One doubts the virtue, one the beauty of his wife,

A boy's ambitious: perhaps the Captain hates us all;

Someone perhaps is leading a civilised life.

Slowly our Western culture in full pomp progresses

Over the barren plains of the sea;  somewhere ahead

A septic East, odd fowl and flowers, odder dresses:

Somewhere a strange and shrewd To-morrow goes to bed,

Planning a test for men from Europe; no one guesses

Who will be most ashamed, who richer, and who dead.