seemed to think I was laying it siege.
It was something I never could fathom,
that mysterious prestige which they all
seemed to think they’d got, like a halo
around them, an invisible wall.
If you were willing to see it
they were only too eager to grant
you a similar glory, since you’d risen
to their levels, my holy aunt!
But never, no never, could I see it,
and so I could never feel
the proper unction about it,
and it worried me a good deal.
For years and years it bothered me
that I couldn’t feel one of them,
till at last I saw the reason:
they were just a bloody sham.
As far as any superiority
or halo or prestige went
they were just a bloody collective fraud,
that was what their ahem! meant.
Their superiority was meanness,
they were cunning about the goods
and sly with a lot of after-thought,
and they put it over us, the duds!
And I’d let myself be swindled,
half believing’em, till one day
I suddenly said: I’ve finished!
My God, let me get away!
Have Done with It
Once and for all, have done with it,
all the silly bunk
of upper-class superiority; that superior
stuff is just holy skunk.
Just you walk around them
and look at the fat-arsed lot
and tell me how they can put it across,
this superior rot!
All these gracious ladies,
graciously bowing down
from their pedestals! Holy Moses,
they’ve done you brown!
And all the sacred gentry,
so responsible and good,
feeling so kind towards you
and suckin’ your blood!
My! the bloomin’ pompoms!
Even as trimmings they’re stale.
Still, if you don’t want to bother,
I don’t care myself a whale.
Henriette
O — Henriette
I remember yet
how cross you were
over Lady C,
how you hated her
and detested me.
Yet now you see
you don’t mind a bit.
You’ve got used to it,
and you feel more free.
And now you know
how good we were
up there in the snow
with Lady C,
though you hated her
at the first go.
Yet now you can see
how she set us free
to laugh, and to be
more spontaneous, and we
were happy, weren’t we,
up there in the snow
with the world below!
So now, when you say
your prayers at night
you must sometimes pray:
Dear Lord of delight,
may I be Jane
tonight, profane
but sweet in your sight,
though last night I was Mary —
You said I might,
dear Lord of right,
be so contrary.
So may I be Jane
tonight and refrain
from being Mary? —
Vitality
Alas, my poor young men,
do you lack vitality?
Has the shell grown too heavy for the tortoise?
Does he just squirm?
Is the frame of things too heavy
for poor young wretched men?
Do they jazz and jump and wriggle
and rush about in machines
and listen to bodiless noises
and cling to their thin young women
as to the last straw
just in desperation,
because their spirit can’t move?
Because their hope is pinned down by the system
and can’t even flutter?
Well, well-, if it is so it is so;
but remember, the undaunted gods
give vitality still to the dauntless.
And sometimes they give it as love,
ah love, sweet love, not so easy!
But sometimes they give it as lightning.
And it’s no good wailing for love
if they only offer you lightning.
And it’s no good mooning for sloppy ease
when they’re holding out the thunderbolt
for you to take.
You might as well take the lightning
for once, and feel it go through you.
You might as well accept the thunderbolt
and prepare for storms.
You’ll not get vitality any other way.
Willy Wet-Legs
I can’t stand Willy wet-leg,
can’t stand him at any price.
He’s resigned, and when you hit him
he lets you hit him twice.
Maybe
Ah well, ah well, maybe
the young have learned some sense.
They ought at last to see through the game,
they’ve sat long enough on the fence.
Maybe their little bottoms
will get tired and sore at last
of sitting there on the fence, and letting
their good youth go to waste.
Maybe a sense of destiny
will rise in them one day,
maybe they’ll realise it’s time
they slipped into the fray.
Maybe they’re getting tired
of sitting on the fence;
it dawns on them that the whole damn swindle
is played at their expense.
Stand Up!
Stand up, but not for Jesus!
It’s a little late for that.
Stand up for justice and a jolly life,
I’ll hold your hat.
Stand up, stand up for justice,
ye swindled little blokes!
Stand up and do some punching,
give’em a few hard pokes.
Stand up for jolly justice,
you haven’t got much to lose:
a job you don’t like, and a scanty chance
for a dreary little booze.
Stand up for something different,
and have a little fun
fighting for something worth fighting for
before you’ve done.
Stand up for a new arrangement,
for a chance of life all round,
for freedom, and the fun of living
bust in, and hold the ground!
Demon Justice
If you want justice
let it be demon justice
that puts salt on the tails
of the goody good.
For the sins of omission,
for leaving things out,
not even a suspicion
of John Thomas about —
not even an inkling
that Lady Jane
is quietly twinkling
up the lane —
not even a hint
that a pretty bottom
has a gay little glint
quite apart from Sodom —
that you and I
were both begotten
when our parents felt spry
beneath the cotton —
that the face is not only
the mind’s index,
but also the comely
shy flower of sex —
that a woman is always
a gate to the flood,
that a man is forever
a column of blood —
for these most vital
things omitted,
&nbs
p; now make requital
and get acquitted.
Now bend you down
to demon justice,
and take sixty slashes
across your rusties.
Then with a sore
arse perhaps you’ll remember
not quite to ignore
the jolly little member.
Be a Demon!
Oh be a demon
outside all class!
If you’re a woman
or even an ass
still be a demon
beyond the mass.
Somewhere inside you
lives your own little fiend,
and woe betide you
if he feels demeaned,
better do him justice,
keep his path well cleaned.
When you’ve been being
too human, too long,
and your demon starts lashing out
going it strong,
don’t get too frightened,
it’s you who’ve been wrong.
You’re not altogether
such a human bird,
you’re as mixed as the weather,
not just a good turd,
so shut up pie-jaw blether,
let your demon be heard.
Don’t look for a saviour,
you’ve had some, you know!
Drop your sloppy behaviour
and start in to show
your demon rump twinkling
with a hie! hop below!
If, poor little bleeder,
you still feel you must follow
some wonderful leader
now the old ones ring hollow,
then follow your demon
and hark to his holloa!
The Jeune Fille
Oh the innocent girl
in her maiden teens
knows perfectly well
what everything means.
If she didn’t, she oughter;
it’s a silly shame
to pretend that your daughter
is a blank at the game.
Anyhow she despises
your fool pretence
that she’s just a sheep
and can’t see through the fence.
Oh every lass
should hear all the rough words
and laugh, let them pass;
and be used to the turds
as well as the grass;
and know that she’s got
in herself a small treasure
that may yet give a lot
of genuine pleasure
to a decent man;
and beware and take care
of it while she can.
If she never knows
what is her treasure,
she grows and throws
it away, and you measure
the folly of that
from her subsequent woes.
Oh the innocent maid,
when she knows what’s what
from the top of her head
to the tips of her toes
is more innocent far
than the blank-it-out girl
who gets into the car
and just fills you with hell.
Trust
Oh we’ve got to trust
one another again
in some essentials.
Not the narrow little
bargaining trust
that says: I’m for you
if you’ll be for me.
But a bigger trust,
a trust of the sun
that does not bother
about moth and rust,
and we see it shining
in one another.
Oh don’t you trust me,
don’t burden me
with your life and affairs; don’t thrust me
into your cares.
But I think you may trust
the sun in me
that glows with just
as much glow as you see
in me, and no more.
But if it warms
your heart’s quick core
why then trust it, it forms
one faithfulness more.
And be, oh be
a sun to me,
not a weary, insistent
personality
but a sun that shines
and goes dark, but shines
again and entwines
with the sunshine in me
till we both of us
are more glorious
and more sunny.
NETTLES
CONTENTS
A Rose is not a Cabbage
The Man in the Street
Britannia’s Baby
Change of Government
The British Workman and the Government
Clydesider
Flapper Vote
Songs I Learnt at School
Innocent England
Give Me a Sponge
Puss-Puss!
London Mercury
My Little Critics
Editorial Office
The Great Newspaper Editor to his Subordinate
Modern Prayer
Cry of the Masses
What Have They Done to You?
The People
The Factory Cities
Leaves of Grass, Flowers of Grass
Magnificent Democracy
Lawrence, c. 1920
A Rose is not a Cabbage
And still, in spite of all they do, I love the rose of England,
but the cabbages of England leave me cold.
Oh the cabbages of England leave me cold
even though they grow on genuine English mould,
with their caterpillars, and the care with which they fold
nothingness, pale nothingness in their hearts.
Now that the winter of our discontent
is settled on the land, roses are scarce in England, very scarce,
there are none any more.
But look at the cabbages, Oh count them by the score!
Oh aren’t they green. Oh haven’t we, haven’t we spent
a lot of money rearing them -!
Yet the cabbages of England leave me cold
no matter of what sort the cabbage be.
The Man in the Street
I met him in the street
I said: How do you do? —
He said: And who are you
when we meet? —
I sadly went my way
feeling anything but gay,
yet once more I met a man and had to stay —
May I greet — ?
He cut me very dead,
but then he turned and said:
I see you’re off your head
thus to greet
in the street
a member of the British Public: don’t you see
the policeman on his beat?
Well, he’s there protecting me! —
But! said I,
but why — ?
And they ran me in, to teach me why.
Britannia’s Baby
Oh Britannia’s got a baby, a baby, a baby,
Britannia’s got a baby, and she got it by and by.
It’s called the British Public, the Public, the Public,
It’s called the British Public, including you and I.
It’s such a bonny baby, a baby, a baby,
It’s such a bonny baby, we daren’t let it cry.
So we’ve got a lot of nurses, of nurses, of nurses,
to feed the bonny baby, and keep its tara dry.
Eat your pap, little man, like a man!
Drink its minky-winky, then, like a man!
Does it want to go to bye-bye! there then, take its little dummy,
take its dummy, go to bye-bye like a man, little man!
Drop of whiskey in its minky? well it shall, yes it shall
if it’s good, if it’s going to be a good little man.
Want to
go a little tattah? so it shall, of course it shall
go a banging little tattah with its Auntie
if it’s good!
If it’s good today, and tomorrow-day as well,
then when Sunday comes, it shall go a tattah with its Auntie
in a motor, in a pap-pap pap-pap motor, little man!
Oh isn’t it a lucky little man!
to have whiskey in its minky
and to go a banging tattah with its Auntie
who loves her little man,
such a dear, kind Auntie, isn’t she, to a lucky little man -!
For Oh, the British Public, the Public, the Public,
For Oh, the British Public is a lucky little man!
Change of Government
We’ve got a change of government
if you know what I mean.
Auntie Maud has come to keep house
instead of Aunt Gwendoline.
They say that Auntie Maud, you know,
is rather common; she’s not
so well brought up as Aunt Gwendoline is,
so perhaps she’ll be more on the spot.
That’s what we hope: we hope she’ll be
a better manager; for Oh dear me
Aunt Gwen was a poor one! but Aunt Maud, you see,
was brought up poor, so she’ll have to be
more careful. Though if she’s not
won’t it be awful! what shall we do?
Aunt Libby’s really a feeble lot,
and I simply daren’t think of Aunt Lou!
I’ve never seen her, but they say
she’s a holy terror: she takes your best frock
and all your best things, and just gives them away
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 860