Читать книгу Verse and Worse - Graham Harry - Страница 10

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This is the Country of the Free,

The Cocktail and the Ten Cent Chew;

Where you're as good a man as me,

And I'm a better man than you!

(O Liberty, how free we make!

Freedom, what liberties we take!)

'Tis here the startled tourist meets,

'Mid clanging of a thousand bells,

The railways running through the streets,

Skyscraping flats and vast hotels,

Where rest, on the resplendent floors,

The necessary cuspidors.

And here you may encounter too

The pauper immigrants in shoals,

The Swede, the German, and the Jew,

The Irishman, who rules the polls

And is employed to keep the peace,

A venal and corrupt police.

They are so busy here, you know,

They have no time at all for play;

Each morning to their work they go

And stay there all the livelong day;

Their dreams of happiness depend

On making more than they can spend.

The ladies of this land are all

Developed to a pitch sublime,

Some inches over six foot tall,

With perfect figures all the time.

(For further notice of their looks

See Mr. Dana Gibson's books.)

And, if they happen to possess

Sufficient balance at the bank,

They have the chance of saying 'Yes!'

To needy foreigners of rank;

The future dukes of all the earth

Are half American by birth.

MORAL

A 'dot' combining cash with charms

Is worth a thousand coats-of-arms.