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
Mud, mud, glorious mud...
Now more hippopotami began to convene
On the banks of that river so wide
I wonder now what am I to say of the scene
That 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
Mud, mud, glorious mud...
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
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