Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence
Page 861
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
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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.