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Gilbert Keith Chesterton - Songs Of Education: IV. Citizenship
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Form 8889512, Sub-Section Q

    How slowly learns the child at school
    The names of all the nobs that rule
    From Ponsonby to Pennant;
    Ere his bewildered mind find rest,
    Knowing his host can be a Guest,
    His landlord is a Tennant.

    He knew not, at the age of three,
    What Lord St. Leger next will be
    Or what he was before;
    A Primrose in the social swim
    A Mr. Primrose is to him,
    And he is nothing more.

    But soon, about the age of ten,
    He finds he is a Citizen,
    And knows his way about;
    Can pause within, or just beyond,
    The line `twixt Mond and Demi-Mond,
    `Twixt Getting On--or Out.

    The Citizen will take his share
    (In every sense) as bull and bear;
    Nor need this oral ditty
    Invoke the philologic pen
    To show you that a Citizen
    Means Something in the City.

    Thus gains he, with the virile gown,
    The fasces and the civic crown,
    The forum of the free;
    Not more to Rome`s high law allied
    Is Devonport in all his pride
    Or Lipton`s self than he.

    For he will learn, if he will try,
    The deep interior truths whereby
    We rule the Commonwealth;
    What is the Food-Controller`s fee
    And whether the Health Ministry
    Are in it for their health.
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