First pledge our Queen this solemn night,
     Then drink to England, every guest;
That man’s the best Cosmopolite
     Who loves his native country best.
May freedom’s oak for ever live
     With stronger life from day to day;
That man’s the true Conservative
     Who lops the moulder’d branch away.
Hands all round!
     God the traitor’s hope confound!
To this great cause of Freedom drink, my friends,
     And the great name of England, round and round.

To all the loyal hearts who long
     To keep our English Empire whole!
To all our noble sons, the strong
     New England of the Southern Pole!
To England under Indian skies,
     To those dark millions of her realm!
To Canada whom we love and prize,
     Whatever statesman hold the helm.
Hands all round!
     God the traitor’s hope confound!
To this great name of England drink, my friends,
     And all her glorious empire, round and round.

To all our statesmen so they be
     True leaders of the land’s desire!
To both our Houses, may they see
     Beyond the borough and the shire!
We sail’d wherever ship could sail,
     We founded many a mighty state;
Pray God our greatness may not fail
     Through craven fears of being great.
Hands all round!
     God the traitor’s hope confound!
To this great cause of Freedom drink, my friends,
     And the great name of England, round and round.

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste;
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long-since-cancelled woe,
And moan th’ expense of many a vanished sight;
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.

Higgledy piggledy, my black hen,
She lays eggs for gentlemen.
Gentlemen come every day
To count what my black hen doth lay.
If perchance she lays too many,
They fine my hen a pretty penny;
If perchance she fails to lay,
The gentlemen a bonus pay.

Mumbledy pumbledy, my red cow,
She’s cooperating now.
At first she didn’t understand
That milk production must be planned;
She didn’t understand at first
She either had to plan or burst,
But now the government reports
She’s giving pints instead of quarts.

Fiddle de dee, my next-door neighbors,
They are giggling at their labors.
First they plant the tiny seed,
Then they water, then they weed,
Then they hoe and prune and lop,
They they raise a record crop,
Then they laugh their sides asunder,
And plow the whole caboodle under.

Abracadabra, thus we learn
The more you create, the less you earn.
The less you earn, the more you’re given,
The less you lead, the more you’re driven,
The more destroyed, the more they feed,
The more you pay, the more they need,
The more you earn, the less you keep,
And now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul to take
If the tax-collector hasn’t got it before I wake.

One by one the pale stars die before the day now,
One by one the great ships are stirring from their sleep,
Cables all are rumbling, anchors all a-weigh now,
Now the fleet’s a fleet again, gliding towards the deep.

Now the fleet’s a fleet again, bound upon the old ways,
Splendour of the past comes shining in the spray;
Admirals of old time, bring us on the bold ways!
Souls of all the sea-dogs, lead the line to-day!

Far away behind us town and tower are dwindling,
Home becomes a fair dream faded long ago;
Infinitely glorious the height of heaven is kindling,
Infinitely desolate the shoreless sea below.

Now the fleet’s a fleet again, bound upon the old ways,
Splendour of the past comes shining in the spray;
Admirals of old time, bring us on the bold ways!
Souls of all the sea-dogs, lead the line to-day!

Once again with proud hearts we make the old surrender,
Once again with high hearts serve the age to be,
Not for us the warm life of Earth, secure and tender,
Ours the eternal wandering and warfare of the sea.

Now the fleet’s a fleet again, bound upon the old ways,
Splendour of the past comes shining in the spray;
Admirals of old time, bring us on the bold ways!
Souls of all the sea-dogs, lead the line to-day!

Watched the courses of the breakers’ rocking-horses and with Glaucis,
Lady Venus on the settee of the horsehair sea!
Where Lord Tennyson in laurels wrote a gloria free,
In a borealic iceberg came Victoria; she
Knew Prince Albert’s tall memorial took the colours of the floreal
And the borealic iceberg; floating on they see
New-arisen Madam Venus for whose sake from far
Came the fat and zebra’d emperor from Zanzibar
Where like golden bouquets lay far Asia, Africa, Cathay,
All laid before that shady lady by the fibroid Shah.

Captain Fracasse stout as any water-butt came, stood
With Sir Bacchus both a-drinking the black tarr’d grapes’ blood
Plucked among the tartan leafage
By the furry wind whose grief age
Could not wither — like a squirrel with a gold star-nut.
Queen Victoria sitting shocked upon the rocking horse
Of a wave said to the Laureate, “This minx of course
Is as sharp as any lynx and blacker-deeper than the drinks and quite as
Hot as any hottentot, without remorse!