Thank you, dear Clarinda,
for helping with Lady C,
It was you who gave her her first kiss
and told her not to be
afraid of the world, but to sally forth
and trip it for all she was worth.
So out she came, and she said she was Jane,
and you clapped your hands, and said: Say it again!
And you cried:’Ooray! Play up, John Thomas!
Let’s have no full stops, let’s just manage with commas! —
And the white snow glistened, the white world was gay
up there at that height in the Diablerets.
And we slid, and you ski’d, and we came in to tea
and we talked and we roared and you typed Lady C.
And how jolly it was with us up in the snow
with the crest of the dirty drab world down below!
And how bitter it is to come down
to the dirty drab world,
and slowly feel yourself drown
in its mud, and its talk, slowly swirled
to the depths, to the depths
of London town!