Don't try America; I've tried it And must avow I can't abide it. Fancy how commonplace and shabby, There's not a castle nor an abbey. A man of fashion has the spleen Never to see a king or queen. It saddens quite a man of taste To move in such haste. One is confounded with the masses In a railway without classes. One tires of walking in a town Where shilling fares are half a crown. Is atheism not condoned Where services are not intoned? How should a boy turn out but wicked Who hasn't even heard of cricket? For schoolboy friendship what's the date, With courtship from the age of eight? How can jolly chaps subsist Where an army don't exist? How can a man escape the blues Where people will make OO's of U's? How can a person talk at all Where speech is emphasis and drawl? Or will the Yankees urge I carp To say their pitch is in high C sharp? How should a nation not fare ill That can't distinguish shall from will? Or how can mortals there be good Where would usurps the place of should? When every word must be a joke What man of sense can bear the yoke? All conversation dies away If what you mean you never say. Where, with a housekeeper for wife, Are the amenities of life? And be the ladies what they will, It's vain: the men are tradesmen still. No, big America: forgive: To England I return to live. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CONTEMPLATIONS by ANNE BRADSTREET TO THE PLIOCENE SKULL by FRANCIS BRET HARTE PARTING by COVENTRY KERSEY DIGHTON PATMORE THE KLONDIKE by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON THE HUSKERS by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER EPIGRAM by DECIMUS MAGNUS AUSONIUS |