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Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence

Page 861

by D. H. Lawrence


  to the char, who’s as good as you are, any day.

  And she makes you go to work, even if

  you’ve got money of your own.

  And she shuts you in the cellar for the least little tiff,

  and just loves to hear you sob and groan.

  Oh I do hope Aunt Maud will manage all right!

  Because they say, if she doesn’t

  Aunt Louie is almost bound to come

  with all our horrible cousins

  that we’ve never seen, coming stamping and swearing

  and painting the woodwork red

  just to show how dangerous they are!

  Oh, Aunt Louie’s the one I dread.

  The British Workman and the Government

  Hold my hand, Auntie, Auntie,

  Auntie, hold my hand!

  I feel I’m going to be naughty, Auntie

  and you don’t seem to understand.

  Hold my hand and love me, Auntie,

  love your little boy!

  We want to be loved, especially, Auntie,

  us whom you can’t employ.

  Idle we stand at the kerb-edge, Auntie,

  dangling our useless hands.

  But we don’t mind so much if you love us, and we feel

  that Auntie understands.

  But wages go down, and really, Auntie,

  we get a pretty thin time.

  But so long as we know that Auntie loves us

  we’ll try to act up sublime.

  Hold my hand, Auntie, Auntie,

  Auntie, hold my hand!

  Perhaps I’m going to be naughty, Auntie,

  and you don’t seem to understand.

  Clydesider

  If Maudie doesn’t love us

  then why should we be good?

  Why shouldn’t we steal the jam in the cupboard

  and all the dainty food

  as we never get a taste of! - really

  it ought all to be Jock’s and mine.

  Maudie is nought but the housekeeper

  and she kens it fine.

  So if Maudie doesn’t suit us

  she’s got to pack and go.

  We’re getting to be big lads now, an’ soon

  we can run our own show.

  Flapper Vote

  We voted’em in, and we’ll vote’em out!

  We’ll show’em a thing or two, never you doubt.

  Lizzie and Lucy and me and Flossie

  we’ll show these old uncles who’s going to be bossy!

  Now then, Prime Minister, hold on a bit!

  Remember who voted you into your seat!

  But for Lizzie and Lucy and Flossie and me

  you all of you know where you’d jolly well be.

  But me and Lucy and Flossie and Lizzie

  we thought we’d elect you to keep you all busy.

  So be a nice uncle, be good to us girls;

  just vote us some pin-money, to encourage our curls!

  And Lizzie and me and Flossie and Lucy,

  we’ll back you up, uncle! We’re young, and we’re juicy! —

  Songs I Learnt at School

  I — NEPTUNE’S LITTLE AFFAIR WITH FREEDOM

  Father Neptune one day to Freedom did say:

  If ever I lived upon dry-y land,

  The spot I should hit on would be little Britain —

  Said Freedom: Why that’s my own I-sland! —

  ‘Oh what a bright little I-sland!

  A right little, tight little I-sland!

  Seek all the world round there’s none can be found

  So happy as our little I-sland!’

  So Father Neptune walked up the shore

  bright and naked aft and fore

  as he’s always been, since the Flood and before.

  And instantly rose a great uproar

  of Freedom shrieking till her throat was sore:

  Arrest him, he’s indecent, he’s obscene what’s more! —

  Policemen and the British nation

  threw themselves on him in indignation

  with handcuffs, and took him to the police-station.

  The sea-god said, in consternation:

  But I came at Freedom’s invitation! —

  So then they charged him with defamation.

  And all the sea-nymphs out at sea

  rocked on the waves and sang lustily

  thinking old Neptune was off on a spree

  with giddy Freedom in the land of the Free:

  ‘Oh what a bright little I-sland!

  A right little, tight little I-sland! -’

  II — MY NATIVE LAND

  First verse:

  Of every land or east or west

  I — love my native land the best, etc. etc.

  Second verse:

  Of every tongue or east or west

  I — love my native tongue the best

  Though not so smoothly spoken

  Nor woven with Italian art

  Yet when it speaks from heart to heart

  The spell is never broken

  The-e spell is-s never bro-o-ken!

  Oh a man may travel both east and west

  and still speak his native language the best.

  But don’t try it on, Oh never start

  this business of speaking from heart to heart

  in mother English, or you’re in the cart.

  For our honest and healthy English tongue

  is apt to prove a great deal too strong

  for our dainty, our delicate English ears.

  Oh touch the harp, touch the harp gently, my dears!

  We English are so sensitive, much more than appears. —

  Oh don’t for an instant ever dream

  of speaking plain English to an Englishman; you’ll seem

  to him worse than a bolshevist Jew, or an utter

  outsider sprung up from some horrible gutter.

  Oh mince your words, and mince them well

  if you don’t want to break the sweet English spell.

  For we English are really a race apart,

  superior to everyone else: so don’t start

  being crude and straightforward, you’ll only prove

  you’re a rank outsider of the fifth remove.

  III — THE BRITISH BOY

  First verse:

  Oh I’m a British bo-oy, Sir,

  A joy to-o tell it you.

  God make me of it worthy

  Life’s toilsome journey through!

  And when to man’s estate I grow

  My British blood the world shall know,

  For I’m a British bo-oy, Sir,

  A joy to-o tell it you! —

  And so to man’s estate he grew

  and his British blood the world it knew.

  And the world it didn’t give a hoot

  if his blood was British or Timbuctoot.

  But with that British blood of his

  he painted some pictures, real beauties

  he thought them, so he sent them home

  to Britain, where his blood came from.

  But Britannia turned pale, and began to faint.

  — Destroy, she moaned, these horrors in paint! —

  He answered: Dear Britannia, why?

  I’m your British boy, and I did but try -!

  If my pictures are nude, so once were you,

  and you will be again, therefore why look blue! —

  Britannia hid behind her shield

  lest her heel of Achilles should be revealed,

  and she said: Don’t dare, you wretch, to be lewd!

  I never was nor will be nude! —

  And she jabbed her British trident clean

  through the poor boy’s pictures: You see what I mean! —

  But the British boy he turned and fled

  for the trident was levelled at his head.

  Henceforth he’ll keep clear of her toasting-fork.

  Pleasing Britannia is no light work.

 
13,000 People

  Thirteen thousand people came to see

  my pictures, eager as the honey bee

  for the flowers; and I’ll tell you what —

  all eyes sought the same old spot

  in every picture, every time,

  and gazed and gloated without rhyme

  or reason, where the leaf should be,

  the fig-leaf that was not, woe is me!

  And they blushed, they giggled, they sniggered, they leered,

  or they boiled and they fumed, in fury they sneered

  and said: Oh boy! I tell you what,

  look at that one there, that’s pretty hot! —

  And they stared and they stared, the half-witted lot,

  at the spot where the fig-leaf just was not!

  But why, I ask you? Oh tell me why?

  Aren’t they made quite the same, then, as you and I?

  Can it be they’ve been trimmed, so they’ve never seen

  the innocent member that a fig-leaf will screen?

  What’s the matter with them? aren’t they women and men?

  or is something missing? or what’s wrong with them then?

  that they stared and leered at the single spot

  where a fig-leaf might have been, and was not.

  I — thought it was a commonplace

  that a man or a woman in a state of grace,

  in puris naturalibus,70 don’t you see,

  had normal pudenda, like you and me.

  But it can’t be so, for they behaved

  like lunatics looking, they bubbled and raved

  or gloated or peeped at the simple spot

  where a fig-leaf might have been, but was not.

  I — tell you, there must be something wrong

  with my fellow-countrymen; or else I don’t belong.

  Innocent England

  Oh what a pity, Oh! don’t you agree,

  that figs aren’t found in the land of the free!

  Fig trees don’t grow in my native land;

  there’s never a fig-leaf near at hand

  when you want one; so I did without;

  and that is what the row’s about.

  Virginal, pure policemen came

  and hid their faces for very shame

  while they carried the shameless things away

  to gaol, to be hid from the light of day.

  And Mr Mead, that old, old lily,

  said: ‘Gross! coarse! hideous!’ - and I, like a silly,

  thought he meant the faces of the police-court officials,

  and how right he was, and I signed my initials

  to confirm what he said; but alas, he meant

  my pictures, and on the proceedings went.

  The upshot was, my pictures must bum

  that English artists might finally learn

  when they painted a nude, to put a cache sexe on,

  a cache sexe, a cache sexe, or else begone!

  A fig-leaf; or, if you cannot find it,

  a wreath of mist, with nothing behind it.

  A wreath of mist is the usual thing

  in the north, to hide where the turtles sing.

  Though they never sing, they never sing,

  don’t you dare to suggest such a thing

  or Mr Mead will be after you.

  — But what a pity I never knew

  A wreath of English mist would do

  as a cache sexe! I’d have put a whole fog.

  But once and forever barks the old dog,

  so my pictures are in prison, instead of in the Zoo.

  Give Me a Sponge

  Give me a sponge and some clear, clean water

  and leave me alone awhile

  with my thirteen sorry pictures that have just been rescued

  from durance vile.

  Leave me alone now, for my soul is burning

  as it feels the slimy taint

  of all those nasty police-eyes like snail-tracks smearing

  the gentle souls that figure in the paint.

  Ah, my nice pictures, they are fouled, they are dirtied

  not by time, but by unclean breath and eyes

  of all the sordid people that have stared at them uncleanly

  looking dirt on them, and breathing on them lies.

  Ah my nice pictures, let me sponge you very gently

  to sponge away the slime

  that ancient eyes have left on you, where obscene eyes have

  crawled

  leaving nasty films upon you every time.

  Ah the clean waters of the sky, ah! can you wash

  away the evil starings and the breath

  of the foul ones from my pictures? Oh purify

  them now from all this touch of tainted death!

  Puss-Puss!

  — Oh, Auntie, isn’t he a beauty! And is he a gendeman or a lady?

  — Neither, my dear! I had him fixed. It saves him from so many

  undesirable associations.

  London Mercury

  Oh when Mercury came to London

  they ‘had him fixed’.

  It saves him from so many undesirable associations.

  And now all the Aunties like him so much

  because, you see, he is ‘neither, my dear!’

  My Little Critics

  My little critics must all have been brought up by their Aunties

  who petted them, and had them fixed

  to save them from undesirable associations.

  It must be so. Otherwise

  the sight of an ordinary Tom wouldn’t send them into such silly

  hysterics,

  my little critics, dear, safe little pets.

  Editorial Office

  Applicant for post as literary critic: Here are my credentials, Sir! —

  Editor: Er - quite. But - er - biologically! Have you been fixed? —

  arrangé - you understand what I mean?

  Applicant: I’m afraid I don’t.

  Editor: (sternly) Have you been made safe for the great British

  Public? Has everything objectionable been removed from you?

  Applicant: In what way, quite?

  Editor: By surgical operation. Did your parents have you sterilised?

  Applicant: I don’t think so, Sir. I’m afraid not.

  Editor: Good morning! Don’t trouble to call again. We have the

  welfare of the British Public at heart.

  The Great Newspaper Editor to his Subordinate

  Mr Smith, Mr Smith,

  haven’t I told you to take the pith

  and marrow and substance out of all

  the articles passing beneath your scrawl?

  And now look here what you’ve gone and done!

  You’ve told them that life isn’t really much fun,

  when you know that they’ve got to think that they’re happy,

  as happy as happy, Oh, so happy, you sappy.

  Think of the effect on Miss Harrison

  when she reads that her life isn’t really much fun.

  She’ll take off her specs, and she’ll put down the paper

  as if it was giving off poison vapour.

  And she’ll avoid it; she’ll go and order

  The Morning Smile, sure that it will afford her

  comfort and cheer, sure that it will tell her

  she’s a marv’lous, delicious, high-spirited feller.

  You must chop up each article, make it pappy

  and easy to swallow; always tell them they’re happy,

  suggest that they’re spicy, yet how pure they are,

  and what a sense of true humour they’ve got, ha-ha!

  Mr Smith, Mr Smith,

  have you still to learn that pith

  and marrow and substance are sure to be

  indigestible to Miss Ponsonby!

  Mr Smith, Mr Smith,

  if you stay in my office, you’ve got to be kith

  and kin with Miss Jupson, whose guts are narrow
<
br />   and can’t pass such things as substance and marrow.

  Mr Smith, Mr Smith,

  consider Miss Wilks, or depart forthwith.

  For the British Public, once more be it said,

  is summed up in a nice, narrow-gutted old maid.

  Modern Prayer

  Almighty Mammon, make me rich!

  Make me rich quickly, with never a hitch

  in my fine prosperity! Kick those in the ditch

  who hinder me, Mammon, great son of a bitch!

  Cry of the Masses

  Give us back, Oh give us back

  Our bodies before we die!

  Trot, trot, trot, corpse-body, to work.

  Chew, chew, chew, corpse-body, at the meal.

  Sit, sit, sit, corpse-body, in the car.

  Stare, stare, stare, corpse-body, at the film.

  Listen, listen, listen, corpse-body, to the wireless.

  Talk, talk, talk, corpse-body, newspaper talk.

  Sleep, sleep, sleep, corpse-body, factory-hand sleep.

  Die, die, die, corpse-body, doesn’t matter!

  Must we die, must we die

  bodiless, as we lived?

  Corpse-anatomies with ready-made sensations!

  Corpse-anatomies, that can work.

 

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