A bold hippopotamus was standing one day On the banks of the cool Shalimar He gazed at the bottom as it peacefully lay By the light of the evening star Away on a hilltop sat combing her hair His fair hippopotami maid The hippopotamus was no ignoramus And sang her this sweet serenade Mud, mud, glorious mud Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood So follow me follow, down to the hollow And there let us wallow in glorious mud The fair hippopotama he aimed to entice From her seat on the hilltop above As she hadn’t got a ma to give her advice Came tiptoeing down to her love Like thunder the forest re-echoed the sound Of the song that they sang as they met His inamorata adjusted her garter And lifted her voice in duet Now more hippopotami began to convene On the banks of that river so wide I wonder what am I to say of the scene The ensued by the Shalimar side They dived all at once with an ear-splitting splosh Then rose to the surface again A regular army of hippopotami All singing this haunting refrain The amorous hippopotamus whose love song we know Is now married and father of ten He murmurs God rot ‘em as he watches them grow And he longs to be single again He’ll gambol no more on the banks of the Nile Which Nasser is flooding next spring With hippopotamas in silken pyjamas No more will he teach them to sing