The Celt in all his variants from Builth to Ballyhoo,
His mental processes are plain — one knows whaThe will do,
And can logically predicate his finish by his start;
But the English — ah, the English! — they are quite a race apart.

Their psychology is bovine, their outlook crude and raw.
They abandon vital matters to be tickled with a straw;
But the straw that they were tickled with — the chaff that they were fed with —
They convert into a weaver's beam to break their foeman's head with.

For undemocratic reasons and for motives not of State,
They arrive at their conclusions — largely inarticulate.
Being void of self-expression they confide their views to none;
But sometimes in a smoking-room, one learns why things were done.

Yes, sometimes in a smoking-room, through clouds of " Ers " and " Ums, "
Obliquely and by inference, illumination comes,
On some step that they have taken, or some action they approve —
Embellished with the argot of the Upper Fourth Remove.

In telegraphic sentences, half nodded to their friends,
They hint a matter's inwardness — and there the matter ends.
And while the Celt is talking from Valencia to Kirkwall,
The English — ah, the English! — don't say anything at all.