And your poses so dramatic;
Yours the honour and the glory, while the country pays the bill,
With your shouting sempiternal,
And your Grandmamma a Colonel,
And the power--which is best of all--to shoot your birds by will.

Then the joy of gallopading with a helmet and a sword,
While the thunder of your cannons wakes the echoes from afar.
And if, while you're in Germany, you happen to be bored,
Why, you rush away to Russia, and you call upon the CZAR.
With your wordy perorations,
And your peaceful proclamations,
While you grind the nation's manhood in your military mill.
And whenever skies look pleasant
Out you go and shoot a pheasant,
Or as many as you want to, with your double-barrelled will.

You can always flout your father, too--he's dead, but never mind;
He and all who dream as he did are much better in their graves.
And you cross the sea to Osborne, and, if Grandmamma be kind,
You become a British Admiral, and help to rule the waves;
With Jack Tars to say "Ay, Ay, Sir!"
To this nautical young Kaiser,
Who is like the waves he sails on, since he never can be still.
Who to every other blessing
Adds the proud one of possessing
A gun-replacing, bird-destroying, game-bag-filling will.

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