Friday Poetry: Michael Flanders

Happy Friday!

I hope everyone has had a good week so far.

My chosen poem this week is actually a song but I really like it and I read it as a poem so I thought I would share it with you. The song is by the English actor, broadcaster, and writer and performer of comic songs Michael Flanders (1922-1975).

The Hippopotamus Song

A bold Hippopotamus was standing one day
On the banks of the cool Shalimar,
He gazed at the bottom as it peacefully lay
By the light of the evening star.
Away on a hilltop sat combing her hair
His fair Hippopotamus maid;
The Hippopotamus was no ignoramus
And sang her this sweet serenade:

Mud, mud, glorious mud,
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood!
So follow me, follow
Down to the hollow
And there let us wallow 
In glorious mud!

The fair Hippopotamus he aimed to entice
From her seat on that hilltop above,
As she hadn't got a ma to give her advice,
Came tiptoeing down to her love.
Like thunder the forest re-echoed the sound
Of the song that they sang as they met.
His inamorata adjusted her garter
And lifted her voice in duet:

Mud, mud, glorious mud,
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood!
So follow me, follow
Down to the hollow
And there let us wallow 
In glorious mud!

Now more Hippopotamus began to convene
On the banks of that river so wide.
I wonder now what am I to say of the scene
That ensued by the Shalimar side?
They dived all at once with an ear-splitting splosh
Then rose to the surface again,
A regular army of Hippopotami
All singing this haunting refrain: 

Mud, mud, glorious mud,
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood!
So follow me, follow
Down to the hollow
And there let us wallow 
In glorious mud!

Michael Fanders