'Ow are yer, old Turmuts? Gone mouldy, or moon-struck, or wot? Sticking down in the country, like you do, I tell yer, is all tommy-rot. Its town makes a man of one, Charlie, as me and the nobs 'as found out, And a snide 'un like you should be fly to it. Carn't fancy wot you're about. Old Ruskin, I know, sez quite t'other, but then _he_ is clean off his chump. Where's the _life_ in long lanes, with no gas-lamps? Their smell always give me the 'ump. Come hout on it, mate, it'll spile yer. It's May, and the season's begun, All the toffs is in town--ah! you trust 'em! _they_ know where to dropon the fun. Don't ketch _them_ a-Maying, my pippin, like bloomin' old Jacks-in-the-Green, A-sloppin' about in damp medders, with never a pub to be seen. No fear! We've primroses in tons--thanks to Beakey--for them as can pay. And other larks as _is_ larks, mate, they know meet in London in May. It is all very well, on a Sunday, for just arf a dozen or so To take a chay-cart down to Epsom, and cut down the may as yer go. I've 'ad 'igh old times on that lay, Charlie, gals, don't yer know, and all that, Returning at dusk with the beer on, and may branches all round yer 'at. With plenty of tuppenny smokes and 'am san'wiches, Charlie, old man, And a bit of good goods in pink musling, it ain't arf a bad sort o' plan. Concertina, in course, and tin whistle, to give 'em a rouser all round, And "chorus," all over the shop, till the winders'll shake at the sound. That's "May, merry May," if yer like, mate, and does your's ancetrar a treat. But the rural's a dose as wants mixing, it won't do to swaller it neat; That's wy the Haristos and 'Arry, and all as is fly to wot's wot, Likes passing the season in London, in spite of yer poetry rot. Country's all jolly fine in the autumn, with plenty of killing about-- Day's rabbitin's not a bad barney, and gull-potting's lummy, no doubt; But green fields with nothink to slorter, no pubs, no theaytres, no gas!-- No, no, it won't wash, and the muggins as tells yer it will is a hass. But May in "the village," my biffin, the mighty metrolopus,--ah! That's paradise, sir, and no kid, with a dash of the true lah-di-dah. Covent Garden licks Eden, I reckon, at least it'll do _me_ A 1; Button-'oler and Bond Street, old pal, that's yer fair top-row sarmple for fun! Wy, we git all the best of the country in London, with dollups chucked in. _Rush in herby!_--ascuse the Hitalian!--Ah, mate, ony wish I'd the tin; I'd take 'em a trot, and no flounders! It's 'ard, bloomin' 'ard, my dear boy, When form as is form ain't no fling, as a German ud say, _fo der quoy._