NÖEL COWARD
"I Went to a Marvelous Party"
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Quite for no reason

I'm here for the Season

And high as a kite

Living in error

With Maud at Cap Ferrat

Which couldn't be right

Everyone's here and frightfully gay

Nobody cares what people say

Though the Riviera

Seems really much queerer

Than Rome at its height

Yesterday night

I went to a marvelous party

With Nounou and Nada and Nell

It was in the fresh air

And we went as we were

And we stayed as we were

Which was Hell

Poor Grace started singing at midnight

And didn't stop singing till four

We knew the excitement was bound to begin

When Laura got blind on Dubonnet and gin

And scratched her veneer with a Cartier pin

I couldn't have liked it more

I went to a marvelous party

I must say the fun was intense

We all had to do

What the people we knew

Would be doing a hundred years hence

Dear Cecil arrived wearing armor

Some shells and a black feather boa

Poor Millicent wore a surrealist comb

Made of bits of mosaic from St. Peter's in Rome

But the weight was so great that she had to go home

I couldn't have liked it more

People's behavior

Away from Belgravia

Would make you aghast

So much variety

Watching society

Scampering past

If you have any mind at all

Gibbon's divine Decline and Fall

Seems pretty flimsy

No more than a whimsy

By way of contrast

On Saturday last

I went to a marvelous party

We didn't start dinner till ten

And young Bobbie Carr

Did a stunt at the bar

With a lot of extraordinary men

Dear Baba arrived with a turtle

Which shattered us all to the core

The Grand Duke was dancing a foxtrot with me

When suddenly Cyril screamed "Fiddl-de-dee"

And ripped off his trousers and jumped in the sea

I couldn't have liked it more

I went to a marvelous party

Elise made an entrance with May

You'd never have guessed

From her fisherman's vest

That her bust had been whittled away

Poor Lulu got fried on Chianti

And talked about esprit de corps

Maurice made a couple of passes at Gus

And Freddie, who hates any kind of a fuss

Did half the Big Apple and twisted his truss

I couldn't have liked it more

I went to a marvelous party

We played the most wonderful game

Maureen disappeared

And came back in a beard

And we all had to guess at her name

We talked about growing old gracefully

And Elsie who's seventy-four

Said, "A, it's a question of being sincere

And be, if you're supple you've nothing to fear

Then she swung upside down from a glass chandelier

I couldn't have liked it more