Americanisation (Chesterton)

Britannia needs no Boulevards,No spaces wide and gay:Her march was through the crooked streetsAlong the narrow way.Nor looks she where, New York's seduction,The Broadway leadeth to destruction.

Britannia needs no Cafes:If Coffee needs must be,Its place should be the Coffee-houseWhere Johnson growled for Tea;But who can hear that human mountainGrowl for an ice-cream soda-fountain?

She needs no Russian TheatreWhere Father strangles Mother,In scenes where all the charactersAnd colours kill each other--Her boast is freedom had by halves,And Britons never shall be Slavs.

But if not hers the Dance of Death,Great Dostoievsky's dance,And if the things most finely FrenchAre better done in France--Might not AmericanisationBe best applied to its own nation?

Ere every shop shall be a storeAnd every Trade a Trust . . .Lo, many men in many landsKnow when their cause is just.There will be quite a large attendanceWhen we Declare our Independence.