In Foreign Parts

When I lived in Singapore,
It was something of a bore
To receive the bulky Begums who came trundling to my door;
They kept getting into tangles
With their bingle-bongle-bangles,
And the tiger used to bite them as he sat upon the floor.

When I lived in Timbuctoo,
Almost everyone I knew
Used to play upon the sackbut, singing "toodle-doodle-doo,"
And they made ecstatic ballads,
And consumed seductive salads
Made of chicory and hickory and other things that grew.

When I lived at Rotterdam,
I possessed a spotted ram,
Who would never feed on anything but hollyhocks and ham;
But one day he butted down
All the magnates of the town,
So they slew him, though I knew him to be gentle as a lamb.

But!
When I got to Kandahar,
It was very, very far,
And the people came and said to me, "How very plain you are!"
So I sailed across the foam,
And I toddle-waddled home,
And no more I'll go a-rovering beyond the harbor bar.