He is an Englishman! For he himself has said it, And it's greatly to his credit, That he is an Englishman! For he might have been a Roosian, A French, or Turk, or Proosian, Or perhaps Itali-an! But in spite of all temptations, To belong to other nations, He remains an Englishman! Hurrah! For the true-born Englishman! [Illustration] ONLY A DANCING GIRL Only a dancing girl, With an unromantic style, With borrowed colour and curl, With fixed mechanical smile, With many a hackneyed wile, With ungrammatical lips, And corns that mar her trips! Hung from the "flies" in air, She acts a palpable lie; She's as little a fairy there As unpoetical I! I hear you asking, Why-- Why in the world I sing This tawdry, tinselled thing? No airy fairy she, As she hangs in arsenic green, From a highly impossible tree, In a highly impossible scene (Herself not over clean). For fays don't suffer, I'm told, From bunions, coughs, or cold. And stately dames that bring Their daughters there to see, Pronounce the "dancing thing" No better than she should be. With her skirt at her shameful knee, And her painted, tainted phiz: Ah, matron, which of us is? (And, in sooth, it oft occurs That while these matrons sigh, Their dresses are lower than hers, And sometimes half as high; And their hair is hair they buy. And they use their glasses, too, In a way she'd blush to do.) But change her gold and green For a coarse merino gown, And see her upon the scene Of her home, when coaxing down Her drunken father's frown, In his squalid cheerless den: She's a fairy truly, then! [Illustration] THE DISAGREEABLE MAN If you give me your attention, I will tell you what I am: I'm a genuine philanthropist--all other kinds are sham. Each little fault of temper and each social defect In my erring fellow-creatures, I endeavour to correct. To all their little weaknesses I open people's eyes, And little plans to snub the self-sufficient I devise; I love my fellow-creatures--I do all the good I can-- Yet everybody says I'm such a disagreeable man! And I can't think why! To compliments inflated I've a withering reply, And vanity I always do my best to mortify; A charitable action I can skilfully dissect; And interested motives I'm delighted to detect. I know everybody's income and what everybody earns, And I carefully compare it with the income-tax returns; But to benefit humanity however much I plan, Yet everybody says I'm such a disagreeable man! And I can't think why!