When trade was sure to pay,
But make them plainly see that eighteen eighty-three
Is “culture’s” palmiest day.
Of course you will pooh pooh whate’er they used to do,
And pronounce it crude and mean,
And declare “that oil and smalts, or pennyworths of salts,
Are things you’ve never seen.”
And everyone will say, as you walk your mystic way,
“If that’s not good enough for him, that is good enough for me,
Why, what a very cultivated kind of youth this kind of youth must be.”