A New John Bull

A tall, slight, English gentleman,     With an eyeglass to his eye;     He mostly says Good-Bai to you,     When he means to say Good-bye;     He shakes hands like a ladies man,     For all the world to see,     But they know, in Corners of the World.     No ladies man is he.     A tall, slight English gentleman,     Who hates to soil his hands;     He takes his mothers drawing-room     To the most outlandish lands;     And when, through Hells we dream not of,     His battery prevails,     He cleans the grime of gunpowder     And blue blood from his nails.     Hes what our blokes in Egypt call     A decent kinder cove.     And if the Pyramids should fall?     Hed merely say Bai Jove!     And if the stones should block his path     For a twelve-month, or a day,     Hed call on Sergeant Whatsisname     To clear those things away!     A quiet English gentleman,     Who dots the Empires rim,     Where sweating sons of ebony     Would go to Hell for him.     And if he chances to get winged,     Or smashed up rather worse,     Hes quite apologetic to     The doctor and the nurse.     A silent English gentleman,     Though sometimes he says Haw.     But if a baboon in its cage     Appealed to British Law     And Justice, to be understood,     Hed listen all polite,     And do his very best to set     The monkey grievance right.     A thoroughbred whose ancestry     Goes back to ages dim;     Yet no one on his wide estates     Need fear to speak to him.     Although he never showed a sign     Of aught save sympathy,     He was the only gentleman     That shamed the cad in me.