I own you’re a very ancient race,
And Greece and Babylon were amid;
You have tenanted many a royal dome,
And dwelt in the oldest pyramid;
The source of the Nile!—Oh! you have been there!
In the ark was your floodless bed;
On the moonless night of Marathon
You crawl’d o’er the mighty dead;
But still, though I reverence your ancestries,
I don’t see why you should nibble my peas.