Social Commentaries
The Baby's Baedeker: Germany
From Verse and Worse (1905)
The German is a stolid soul,
And finds best suited to his taste
A pipe with an enormous bowl,
A fraulein with an ample waist;
He loves his beer, his Kaiser, and
(Donner und blitz!) his Fatherland!
He's perfectly contented if
He listens in the Op'ra-house
To Wagner's well-concealed 'motif,'
Or waltzes of the nimble Strauss;
And all discordant bands he sends
Abroad, to soothe his foreign friends.
When he is glad at anything
He cheers like a dyspeptic goat,
'Hoch! hoch!' You'd think him suffering
From some affection of the throat.
A disagreeable noise, 'tis true,
But pleases him and don't hurt you!
MORAL
A glass of lager underneath the bough,
A long 'churchwarden' and an ample 'frau'
Beside me sitting in a Biergarten,
Ach! Biergarten were paradise enow!
Cite this poem
MLA
Graham, Harry. “The Baby's Baedeker: Germany.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/graham_h/56/.
Chicago
Graham, Harry. “The Baby's Baedeker: Germany.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/graham_h/56/.
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