T.M.G Poem by Sir Owen Seaman

Farewell, my CONSTANTINE! A guardian navy
Facilitates your exit on the blue;
For Greece has been this long while in the gravy
And he that put her there was plainly you;
'TINO MUST GO!' was writ for all to see,
Or, briefly, 'T.M.G.'

Whither, dear Sir, do you propose to sally?
To Switzerland's recuperative air,
To sip condensed milk in a private chalet
Or pluck the lissom chamois from his lair,
Or on the summit of a neutral Alp
Recline your crownless scalp?

Or did you ask from him you love so dearly
A royal haven fenced from rude alarms,
Even though WILLIAM should reserve you merely
A bedroom at 'The Hohenzollern Arms,'
Having for poor relations on the loose
No sort of further use?

Beware! I gather he might clasp his TINO
Only too warmly to his heaving chest,
Saying, 'O how reward such merits? _We_ know!
Thou shalt command an Army in the West!
Yes, thou shalt bear upon the British Front
The pick of all the brunt.'

Frankly, if I were you, I wouldn't chance it.
Fighting has never really been your forte;
Witness Larissa, and your rapid transit,
Chivied by slow foot-sloggers of the Porte;
Far better make for Denmark o'er the foam;
There is no place like home.

Try some ancestral palace, well-appointed;
For choice the one where _Hamlet_ nursed his spite,
Who found the times had grown a bit disjointed
And he was not the man to put 'em right;
And there consult on that enchanted shore
The ghosts of Elsinore.