Like them an Earl of Thackeray and p'raps a Duke of Dickens -
Lord Fildes and Viscount Millais (when they come) we'll welcome
sweetly -
And then, this happy country will be Anglicised completely!
It really is surprising
What a thorough Anglicising
We've brought about - Utopia's quite another land;
In her enterprising movements,
She is England - with improvements,
Which we dutifully offer to our mother-land!



Ballad: An English Girl



A wonderful joy our eyes to bless,
In her magnificent comeliness,
Is an English girl of eleven stone two,
And five foot ten in her dancing shoe!
She follows the hounds, and on she pounds -
The "field" tails off and the muffs diminish -
Over the hedges and brooks she bounds -
Straight as a crow, from find to finish.
At cricket, her kin will lose or win -
She and her maids, on grass and clover,
Eleven maids out - eleven maids in -
(And perhaps an occasional "maiden over").
Go search the world and search the sea,