Abroad is awful!
Have you written home?
Are there not still some honeyed words for tea
which stir? Whet whistles for the age of steam?
Play up! Play up! The pikelet’s buttery.
And did those feet, in stout brown brogues, not roam,
those nostrils trace the scent to Coventry?
(Wherefore the wind is always ill for some.
Wherefore shall we be cheerful, if not free?)
All others we eschew. Each to his own;
but, if not bootless, whence the snobbery?
(Redressed, but in the Emperor’s old gown;
Oxenford cocks a snook at Banbury.)
The kettle stinks of fish! The chips are down!
Arcadia is mispronounced acceuil.
The tenor of the bruit is tedium,
happiness, medium, accordingly.