Explore "Japan (the Baby's Baedeker)" by Harry Graham on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Inhabitants of far Japan / Are happy as the day is long / To sit behind a paper fan / And sing a kind of tuneless song, / Desisting, ev'ry little while, / To have a public bath, or smile.
The members of the fairer sex / Are clad in a becoming dress, / One garment reaching from their necks / Down to the ankles more or less; / Behind each dainty ear they wear / A cherry-blossom in their hair.
If 'Imitation's flattery' / (We learn it at our mother's lap), / A flatterer by birth must be / Our clever little friend the Jap, / Who does whatever we can do, / And does it rather better too.
_MORAL_
Be happy all the time, and plan / To wash as often as you can.