Foreign chimneys rise above our roof;
An arc is better and a cupola best;
No dull domestic dormer can contest
Some distant skyline, legendary and aloof.
Weak and bedraggled are our sagging gutters —
Epitome of unglamorous
Timorous habits, far from exotic
Tropical heat behind closed shutters,
White and erotic.
Their edifices are regal, their schemata rare;
No sullen quarrel in a room at home —
Our sordid family squabbles — can compare
With antique squalor studied in Paris or Rome.