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C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

From Punch

The Crystal Fountain

Conversation between an Anxious Mother and a Policeman at the World’s Exhibition

“GOOD policeman, tell me, pray,

Has my daughter passed this way?

You may know her by her bonnet,

Yellow shawl, and brooch upon it:

Far and near I’ve sought the girl;

I have lost her in the whirl.

Do you think she yonder goes,

Where the Crystal Fountain flows?”

“Ma’am,” says he, “on this here ground,

Whatsomdever’s lost is found:

Rest quite heasy in your mind,—

I your daughter soon will find!

Though she’s got to forrin lands,

Hicy-burgs or Hegypt’s sands,

Still, depend on ’t, soon she goes

Where the Crystal Fountain flows!

“Perhaps Italian h’art attracts

Her, or them there flowers in wax.

May be she has got hup-stairs

In among they heasy-chairs,

And like Gulliver is sleeping

Where them Lillipushums ’s creeping:

But she’ll wake, and then she goes

Where the Crystal Fountain flows!

“Yet, good ma’am, I should explain,

She may stop a bit in Spain,

Smelling of them Porto snuffs,

Looking at the Turkish stuffs;

Or if warm, a Chiny fan,

Offered by the Tartar man,

Will refresh her as she goes

Where the Crystal Fountain flows!

“She may see the silver things,—

Little watches, chains, and rings;

Or mayhap, ma’am, she may stray

Where the monster horgans play;

Or the music of all sorts,

Great and small pianny-forts,

May detain her as she goes

Where the Crystal Fountain flows!

“Or she may have gone in hope

Of a patent henvelope

To take home,—and if she’s able,

Try to see the Roman table;

Or insist on one peep more

At the sparkling Koh-hi-nore:

Then, the chance is, on she goes

Where the Crystal Fountain flows!”

“Well, policeman, certainly

You’re the man to have an eye

Over such a place as this,

And to find a straying Miss!

Pray, good man, my daughter tell,

When she hears them ring the bell,

I shall find her, if she goes

Where the Crystal Fountain flows!”