Laudator Temporis Acti

Mortimer Collins (1827-1876), "Lotos Eating," in his Idyls and Rhymes (Dublin: J. Mc Glashan, 1855), p. 13:

                          I

Who would care to pass his life away
    Of the Lotos-land a dreamful denizen —
Lotos-islands in a waveless bay,
                           Sung by Alfred Tennyson?

                        II

Who would care to be a dull new-comer
    Far across the wild sea's wide abysses,
Where, about the earth's 3000th summer
                         Passed divine Ulysses?

                       III

Rather give me coffee, art, a book,
    From my windows a delicious sea-view,
Southdown mutton, somebody to cook —
                       "Music?" I believe you.

                      IV

Strawberry icebergs in the summer time —
    But of elmwood many a massive splinter,
Good ghost stories, and a classic rhyme,
                        For the nights of winter.

                     V

Now and then a friend and some sauterne,
    Now and then a haunch of Highland venison:
And for Lotos-lands I'll never yearn
                      Maugre Alfred Tennyson.