Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar
T.S. Eliot

  Tra-la-la-la-la-la-laire--nil nisi divinum stabile est; caetera fumus--the
gondola stopped, the old palace was there, how charming its grey and
pink--goats and monkeys, with such hair too!--so the countess passed on until
she came through the little park, where Niobe presented her with a cabinet,
and so departed.


BURBANK crossed a little bridge
   Descending at a small hotel; 
Princess Volupine arrived,
   They were together, and he fell.  

Defunctive music under sea
   Passed seaward with the passing bell 
Slowly: the God Hercules
   Had left him, that had loved him well.  

The horses, under the axletree
   Beat up the dawn from Istria
With even feet. Her shuttered barge
   Burned on the water all the day.  

But this or such was Bleistein's way:
   A saggy bending of the knees 
And elbows, with the palms turned out,
   Chicago Semite Viennese.  

A lustreless protrusive eye
   Stares from the protozoic slime 
At a perspective of Canaletto.
   The smoky candle end of time

Declines. On the Rialto once.
   The rats are underneath the piles. 
The jew is underneath the lot.
   Money in furs. The boatman smiles,  

Princess Volupine extends
  A meagre, blue-nailed, phthisic hand 
To climb the waterstair. Lights, lights,
   She entertains Sir Ferdinand  

Klein. Who clipped the lion's wings
   And flea'd his rump and pared his claws?
Thought Burbank, meditating on
   Time's ruins, and the seven laws.