PLAINT OF THE DISGUSTED BRITON IN THE STATES by GEORGE SANTAYANA

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.

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