WHEN I FIRST PUT THIS UNIFORM ON
Reading edition
When I first put this uniform on, I said, as I looked in the glass, “It’s one to a million That any civilian My figure and form will surpass. Gold lace has a charm for the fair, And I’ve plenty of that, and to spare, While a lover’s professions, When uttered in Hessians, Are eloquent everywhere!” A fact that I counted upon, When I first put this uniform on!
I said, when I first put it on, “It is plain to the veriest dunce That every beauty Will feel it her duty To yield to its glamour at once. They will see that I’m freely gold-laced In a uniform handsome and chaste”— But the peripatetics Of long-haired æsthetics, Are very much more to their taste— Which I never counted upon When I first put this uniform on!