If You're Anxious for to Shine


If you're anxious for to shine in the high aesthetic line as a man of culture rare.
You must gather up the germs of the transcendental terms and plant them everywhere.
You must lie among the daisies and discourse in idle phrases of your elevated state of mind:
The meaning doesn't matter as it's only idle chatter of the transcendental kind.
And everyone will say, as you go your mystic way,
"If this young man expresses himself in terms too deep for me,
Why, what a very cultivated kind of youth this kind of youth must be."


That's the first verse. On the recording I had, Danny Kaye sang the second verse as written by G&S and then the third verse as above, except I heard the line as

"Endeavor to be clever and commit yourself forever to a person on the fence."