Classic Poem

Down comes rain drop, bubble follows
On the house top one by one
Flock the synagogue of swallows,
Met to vote that autumn's gone.

There are hundreds of them sitting,
Met to vote in unison;
They resolve on general flitting.
" I'm for Athens off, " says one.

" Every year my place is filled in
Plinth of pillared Parthenon,
Where a ball has struck the building,
Shot from Turk's besieging gun. "

" As for me, I've got my chamber
O'er a Smyrna coffee-shop,
Where his beadroll, made of amber.
Hadji counts, and sips a drop. "

" I prefer Palmyra's scantlings,
Architraves of lone Baalbec,
Percued on which I feed my bantlings
As they ope their bonnie beak. "

While the last, to tell her plan, says,
" On the second cataract
I've a statue of old Ramses,
And his neck is nicely crack'd. "