Verse and Worse

Abroad is where we tourists spend,

In divers unalluring ways,

The brief occasional week-end,

Or annual Easter holidays;

And earn the (not ill-founded) charge

Of being lunatics at large.

Abroad, we lose our self-respect;

Wear whiskers; let our teeth protrude;

Consider any garb correct,

And no display of temper rude;

Descending, when we cross the foam,

To depths we dare not plumb at home.

(Small wonder that the natives gaze,

With hostile eyes, at foreign freaks,

Who patronise their Passion-plays,

In lemon-coloured chessboard breeks;

An op'ra-glass about each neck,

And on each head a cap of check.)

Abroad, where needy younger sons,

When void the parent's treasure-chest,

Take refuge from insistent duns,

At urgent relatives' request;

To live upon their slender wits,

Or sums some maiden-aunt remits.

Abroad, whence (with a wisdom rare)

Regardless of nostalgic pains,

The weary New York millionaire

Retires with his oil-gotten gains,

And learns how deep a pleasure 'tis

To found our Public Libraries.

For ours is the primeval clan,

From which all lesser lights descend;

Is Crockett not our countryman?

And call we not Corelli friend?

Our brotherhood has bred the brain

Whose offspring bear the brand of Caine.

Tho' nowadays we seldom hear

Miss Proctor, who mislaid a chord,

Or Tennyson, the poet peer,

Who came into the garden, Mord;

Tho' Burns be dead, and Keats unread,

We have a prophet still in Stead.

And so we stare, with nose in air;

And speak in condescending tone,

Of foreigners whose climes compare

So favourably with our own;

And aliens we cannot applaud

Who call themselves At Home Abroad!