Strike the concertina's melancholy string!
 Blow the spirit-stirring harp like anything!
 Let the piano's martial blast
 Rouse the echoes of the past,
 For of AGIB, Prince of Tartary, I sing!

 Of AGIB, who, amid Tartaric scenes,
 Wrote a lot of ballet-music in his teens:
 His gentle spirit rolls
 In the melody of souls--
 Which is pretty, but I don't know what it means.

 Of AGIB, who could readily, at sight,
 Strum a march upon the loud Theodolite.
 He would diligently play
 On the Zoetrope all day,
 And blow the gay Pantechnicon all night.

 One winter--I am shaky in my dates--
 Came two starving Tartar minstrels to his gates;
 Oh, Allah be obeyed,
 How infernally they played!
 I remember that they called themselves the "Ouaits."

 Oh! that day of sorrow, misery, and rage,
 I shall carry to the Catacombs of Age,
 Photographically lined
 On the tablet of my mind,
 When a yesterday has faded from its page!

 Alas! PRINCE AGIB went and asked them in;
 Gave them beer, and eggs, and sweets, and scent, and tin;
 And when (as snobs would say)
 They had "put it all away,"
 He requested them to tune up and begin.

 Though its icy horror chill you to the core,
 I will tell you what I never told before--
 The consequences true
 Of that awful interview,
 For I listened at the keyhole in the door!

 They played him a sonata--let me see!
 "Medulla oblongata"--key of G.
 Then they began to sing
 That extremely lovely thing,
 "Scherzando! ma non troppo, ppp."

 He gave them money, more than they could count,
 Scent from a most ingenious little fount,
 More beer in little kegs,
 Many dozen hard-boiled eggs,
 And goodies to a fabulous amount.

 Now follows the dim horror of my tale,
 And I feel I'm growing gradually pale;
 For even at this day,
 Though its sting has passed away,
 When I venture to remember it, I quail!

 The elder of the brothers gave a squeal,
 All-overish it made me for to feel.
 "O Prince," he says, says he,
 "If a Prince indeed you be,
 I've a mystery I'm going to reveal!

 "Oh, listen, if you'd shun a horrid death,
 To what the gent who's speaking to you saith:
 No 'Ouaits' in truth are we,
 As you fancy that we be,
 For (ter-remble!) I am ALECK--this is BETH!"

 Said AGIB, "Oh! accursed of your kind,
 I have heard that ye are men of evil mind!"
 BETH gave a dreadful shriek--
 But before he'd time to speak
 I was mercilessly collared from behind.

 In number ten or twelve, or even more,
 They fastened me, full length, upon the floor.
 On my face extended flat,
 I was walloped with a cat,
 For listening at the keyhole of a door.

 Oh! the horror of that agonising thrill!
 (I can feel the place in frosty weather still.)
 For a week from ten to four
 I was fastened to the floor,
 While a mercenary wopped me with a will!

 They branded me and broke me on a wheel,
 And they left me in a hospital to heal;
 And, upon my solemn word,
 I have never, never heard
 What those Tartars had determined to reveal.

 But that day of sorrow, misery, and rage,
 I shall carry to the Catacombs of Age,
 Photographically lined
 On the tablet of my mind,
 When a yesterday has faded from its page!