IF I were Anglo-Saxon,
And you were Japanese,
We’d study storks together,
Pluck out the peacock’s feather,
And lean our languid backs on
The stiffest of settees--
If I were Anglo-Saxon,
And you were Japanese.
If you were Della-Cruscan,
And I were A.-Mooresque,
We’d make our limbs look less in
Artistic folds, and dress in
What once were tunics Tuscan
In Dante’s days grotesque--
If you were Della-Cruscan,
And I were A.-Mooresque.
If I were mock Pompeian,
And you Belgravian Greek,
We’d glide ’mid gaping Vandals
In shapeless sheets and sandals,
Like shades in Tartarean
Dim ways remote and bleak--
If I were mock Pompeian,
And you Belgravian Greek.
If you were Culture’s scarecrow,
And I the guy of Art,
I’d learn in latest phrases
Of either’s quaintest crazes
To lisp, and let my hair grow,
While yours you’d cease to part--
If you were Culture’s scarecrow,
And I the guy of Art.
If I’d a Botticelli,
And you’d a new Burne-Jones,
We’d dote for days and days on
Their mystic hues, and gaze on
With lowering looks that felly
We’d fix upon their tones--
If I’d a Botticelli,
And you’d a new Burne-Jones.
If you were skilled at crewels,
And I a dab at rhymes,
I’d write delirious “ballads,”
While you your bilious salads
Were stitching upon two ells
Of coarsest crash, at times--
If you were skilled at crewels,
And I a dab at rhymes.
If I were what’s “consummate,”
And you were quite “too, too,”
’Twould be our Eldorado
To have a yellow dado,
Our happiness to hum at
A teapot tinted blue--
If I were what’s “consummate,”
And you were quite “too, too.”
If you were what “intense” is,
And I were like “decay,”
We’d mutely muse, or mutter
In terms distinctly utter,
And find out what the sense is
Of this æsthetic lay--
If you were what “intense” is,
And I were like “decay.”
If you were wan, my lady,
And I your lover weird,
We’d sit and wink for hours
At languid lily-flowers,
Till, fain of all things fady,
We faintly--disappeared--
If you were wan, my lady,
And I your lover weird.
_Punch._