Oh what a pity, Oh! don’t you agree,
that figs aren’t found in the land of the
free!
Fig trees don’t grow in my native land;
there’s never a fig-leaf near at hand
when you want one; so I did without;
and that is what the row’s about.
Virginal, pure policemen came
and hid their faces for very shame
while they carried the shameless things away
to gaol, to be hid from the light of day.
And Mr Mead, that old, old lily,
said: ‘Gross! coarse! hideous!’ - and I, like a
silly,
thought he meant the faces of the police-court
officials,
and how right he was, and I signed my
initials
to confirm what he said; but alas, he meant
my pictures, and on the proceedings went.
The upshot was, my pictures must bum
that English artists might finally learn
when they painted a nude, to put a cache sexe on,
a cache sexe, a cache sexe, or else
begone!
A fig-leaf; or, if you cannot find it,
a wreath of mist, with nothing behind it.
A wreath of mist is the usual thing
in the north, to hide where the turtles
sing.
Though they never sing, they never sing,
don’t you dare to suggest such a thing
or Mr Mead will be after you.
— But what a pity I never
knew
A wreath of English mist would do
as a cache sexe! I’d have put a whole fog.
But once and forever barks the old dog,
so my pictures are in prison, instead of in the
Zoo.