Written by
Robert Frost |
SHE stood against the kitchen sink, and looked
Over the sink out through a dusty window
At weeds the water from the sink made tall.
She wore her cape; her hat was in her hand.
Behind her was confusion in the room,
Of chairs turned upside down to sit like people
In other chairs, and something, come to look,
For every room a house has—parlor, bed-room,
And dining-room—thrown pell-mell in the kitchen.
And now and then a smudged, infernal face
Looked in a door behind her and addressed
Her back. She always answered without turning.
“Where will I put this walnut bureau, lady?”
“Put it on top of something that’s on top
Of something else,” she laughed. “Oh, put it where
You can to-night, and go. It’s almost dark;
You must be getting started back to town.”
Another blackened face thrust in and looked
And smiled, and when she did not turn, spoke gently,
“What are you seeing out the window, lady?”
“Never was I beladied so before.
Would evidence of having been called lady
More than so many times make me a lady
In common law, I wonder.”
“But I ask,
What are you seeing out the window, lady?”
“What I’ll be seeing more of in the years
To come as here I stand and go the round
Of many plates with towels many times.”
“And what is that? You only put me off.”
“Rank weeds that love the water from the dish-pan
More than some women like the dish-pan, Joe;
A little stretch of mowing-field for you;
Not much of that until I come to woods
That end all. And it’s scarce enough to call
A view.”
“And yet you think you like it, dear?”
“That’s what you’re so concerned to know! You hope
I like it. Bang goes something big away
Off there upstairs. The very tread of men
As great as those is shattering to the frame
Of such a little house. Once left alone,
You and I, dear, will go with softer steps
Up and down stairs and through the rooms, and none
But sudden winds that snatch them from our hands
Will ever slam the doors.”
“I think you see
More than you like to own to out that window.”
“No; for besides the things I tell you of,
I only see the years. They come and go
In alternation with the weeds, the field,
The wood.”
“What kind of years?”
“Why, latter years—
Different from early years.”
“I see them, too.
You didn’t count them?”
“No, the further off
So ran together that I didn’t try to.
It can scarce be that they would be in number
We’d care to know, for we are not young now.
And bang goes something else away off there.
It sounds as if it were the men went down,
And every crash meant one less to return
To lighted city streets we, too, have known,
But now are giving up for country darkness.”
“Come from that window where you see too much for me,
And take a livelier view of things from here.
They’re going. Watch this husky swarming up
Over the wheel into the sky-high seat,
Lighting his pipe now, squinting down his nose
At the flame burning downward as he sucks it.”
“See how it makes his nose-side bright, a proof
How dark it’s getting. Can you tell what time
It is by that? Or by the moon? The new moon!
What shoulder did I see her over? Neither.
A wire she is of silver, as new as we
To everything. Her light won’t last us long.
It’s something, though, to know we’re going to have her
Night after night and stronger every night
To see us through our first two weeks. But, Joe,
The stove! Before they go! Knock on the window;
Ask them to help you get it on its feet.
We stand here dreaming. Hurry! Call them back!”
“They’re not gone yet.”
“We’ve got to have the stove,
Whatever else we want for. And a light.
Have we a piece of candle if the lamp
And oil are buried out of reach?”
Again
The house was full of tramping, and the dark,
Door-filling men burst in and seized the stove.
A cannon-mouth-like hole was in the wall,
To which they set it true by eye; and then
Came up the jointed stovepipe in their hands,
So much too light and airy for their strength
It almost seemed to come ballooning up,
Slipping from clumsy clutches toward the ceiling.
“A fit!” said one, and banged a stovepipe shoulder.
“It’s good luck when you move in to begin
With good luck with your stovepipe. Never mind,
It’s not so bad in the country, settled down,
When people ’re getting on in life, You’ll like it.”
Joe said: “You big boys ought to find a farm,
And make good farmers, and leave other fellows
The city work to do. There’s not enough
For everybody as it is in there.”
“God!” one said wildly, and, when no one spoke:
“Say that to Jimmy here. He needs a farm.”
But Jimmy only made his jaw recede
Fool-like, and rolled his eyes as if to say
He saw himself a farmer. Then there was a French boy
Who said with seriousness that made them laugh,
“Ma friend, you ain’t know what it is you’re ask.”
He doffed his cap and held it with both hands
Across his chest to make as ’twere a bow:
“We’re giving you our chances on de farm.”
And then they all turned to with deafening boots
And put each other bodily out of the house.
“Goodby to them! We puzzle them. They think—
I don’t know what they think we see in what
They leave us to: that pasture slope that seems
The back some farm presents us; and your woods
To northward from your window at the sink,
Waiting to steal a step on us whenever
We drop our eyes or turn to other things,
As in the game ‘Ten-step’ the children play.”
“Good boys they seemed, and let them love the city.
All they could say was ‘God!’ when you proposed
Their coming out and making useful farmers.”
“Did they make something lonesome go through you?
It would take more than them to sicken you—
Us of our bargain. But they left us so
As to our fate, like fools past reasoning with.
They almost shook me.”
“It’s all so much
What we have always wanted, I confess
It’s seeming bad for a moment makes it seem
Even worse still, and so on down, down, down.
It’s nothing; it’s their leaving us at dusk.
I never bore it well when people went.
The first night after guests have gone, the house
Seems haunted or exposed. I always take
A personal interest in the locking up
At bedtime; but the strangeness soon wears off.”
He fetched a dingy lantern from behind
A door. “There’s that we didn’t lose! And these!”—
Some matches he unpocketed. “For food—
The meals we’ve had no one can take from us.
I wish that everything on earth were just
As certain as the meals we’ve had. I wish
The meals we haven’t had were, anyway.
What have you you know where to lay your hands on?”
“The bread we bought in passing at the store.
There’s butter somewhere, too.”
“Let’s rend the bread.
I’ll light the fire for company for you;
You’ll not have any other company
Till Ed begins to get out on a Sunday
To look us over and give us his idea
Of what wants pruning, shingling, breaking up.
He’ll know what he would do if he were we,
And all at once. He’ll plan for us and plan
To help us, but he’ll take it out in planning.
Well, you can set the table with the loaf.
Let’s see you find your loaf. I’ll light the fire.
I like chairs occupying other chairs
Not offering a lady—”
“There again, Joe!
You’re tired.”
“I’m drunk-nonsensical tired out;
Don’t mind a word I say. It’s a day’s work
To empty one house of all household goods
And fill another with ’em fifteen miles away,
Although you do no more than dump them down.”
“Dumped down in paradise we are and happy.”
“It’s all so much what I have always wanted,
I can’t believe it’s what you wanted, too.”
“Shouldn’t you like to know?”
“I’d like to know
If it is what you wanted, then how much
You wanted it for me.”
“A troubled conscience!
You don’t want me to tell if I don’t know.”
“I don’t want to find out what can’t be known.
But who first said the word to come?”
“My dear,
It’s who first thought the thought. You’re searching, Joe,
For things that don’t exist; I mean beginnings.
Ends and beginnings—there are no such things.
There are only middles.”
“What is this?”
“This life?
Our sitting here by lantern-light together
Amid the wreckage of a former home?
You won’t deny the lantern isn’t new.
The stove is not, and you are not to me,
Nor I to you.”
“Perhaps you never were?”
“It would take me forever to recite
All that’s not new in where we find ourselves.
New is a word for fools in towns who think
Style upon style in dress and thought at last
Must get somewhere. I’ve heard you say as much.
No, this is no beginning.”
“Then an end?”
“End is a gloomy word.”
“Is it too late
To drag you out for just a good-night call
On the old peach trees on the knoll to grope
By starlight in the grass for a last peach
The neighbors may not have taken as their right
When the house wasn’t lived in? I’ve been looking:
I doubt if they have left us many grapes.
Before we set ourselves to right the house,
The first thing in the morning, out we go
To go the round of apple, cherry, peach,
Pine, alder, pasture, mowing, well, and brook.
All of a farm it is.”
“I know this much:
I’m going to put you in your bed, if first
I have to make you build it. Come, the light.”
When there was no more lantern in the kitchen,
The fire got out through crannies in the stove
And danced in yellow wrigglers on the ceiling,
As much at home as if they’d always danced there.
|
Written by
Edna St. Vincent Millay |
I should like to rise and go
Where the golden apples grow;--
Where below another sky
Parrot islands anchored lie,
And, watched by cockatoos and goats,
Lonely Crusoes building boats;--
Where in sunshine reaching out
Eastern cities, miles about,
Are with mosque and minaret
Among sandy gardens set,
And the rich goods from near and far
Hang for sale in the bazaar;--
Where the Great Wall round China goes,
And on one side the desert blows,
And with the voice and bell and drum,
Cities on the other hum;--
Where are forests hot as fire,
Wide as England, tall as a spire,
Full of apes and cocoa-nuts
And the ***** hunters' huts;--
Where the knotty crocodile
Lies and blinks in the Nile,
And the red flamingo flies
Hunting fish before his eyes;--
Where in jungles near and far,
Man-devouring tigers are,
Lying close and giving ear
Lest the hunt be drawing near,
Or a comer-by be seen
Swinging in the palanquin;--
Where among the desert sands
Some deserted city stands,
All its children, sweep and prince,
Grown to manhood ages since,
Not a foot in street or house,
Not a stir of child or mouse,
And when kindly falls the night,
In all the town no spark of light.
There I'll come when I'm a man
With a camel caravan;
Light a fire in the gloom
Of some dusty dining-room;
See the pictures on the walls,
Heroes fights and festivals;
And in a corner find the toys
Of the old Egyptian boys.
|
Written by
Andrew Barton Paterson |
'Twas on the famous Empire run,
Whose sun does never set,
Whose grass and water, so they say,
Have never failed them yet --
They carry many million sheep,
Through seasons dry and wet.
They call the homestead Albion House,
And then, along with that,
There's Welshman's Gully, Scotchman's Hill,
And Paddymelon Flat:
And all these places are renowned
For making jumbacks fat.
And the out-paddocks -- holy frost!
There wouldn't be no sense
For me to try and tell you half --
They really are immense;
A man might ride for days and weeks
And never strike a fence.
But still for years they never had
Been known a sheep to lose;
Old Billy Gladstone managed it,
And you can bet your shoes
He'd scores of supers under him,
And droves of jackaroos.
Old Billy had an eagle eye,
And kept his wits about --
If any chaps got trespassing
He quickly cleared 'em out;
And coves that used to "work a cross",
They hated him, no doubt.
But still he managed it in style,
Until the times got dry,
And Billy gave the supers word
To see and mind their eye --
"If any paddocks gets a-fire
I'll know the reason why."
Now on this point old Bill was sure,
Because, for many a year,
Whenever times got dry at all,
As sure as you are here,
The Paddymelon Flat got burnt
Which Bill thought rather *****.
He sent his smartest supers there
To try and keep things right.
No use! The grass was always dry --
They'd go to sleep at night,
And when they woke they'd go and find
The whole concern alight.
One morning it was very hot --
The sun rose in a haze;
Old Bill was cutting down some trees
(One of his little ways);
A black boy came hot-foot to say
The Flat was in a blaze.
Old Bill he swears a fearful oath
And lets the tommy fall --
Says he: "'ll take this business up,
And fix it once for all;
If this goes on the cursed run
Will send us to the wall."
So he withdrew his trespass suits,
He'd one with Dutchy's boss --
In prosecutions criminal
He entered nolle pros.,
But these were neither here nor there --
They always meant a loss.
And off to Paddymelon Flat
He started double quick
Drayloads of men with lots of grog
Lest heat should make them sick,
And all the strangers came around
To see him do the trick.
And there the fire was flaming bright,
For miles and miles it spread,
And many a sheep and horse and cow
Were numbered with the dead --
The super came to meet Old Bill,
And this is what he said:
"No use, to try to beat it out,
'Twill dry you up like toast,
I've done as much as man can do,
Although I never boast;
I think you'd better chuck it up,
And let the jumbucks roast."
Then Bill said just two words: "You're sacked,"
And pitches off his coat,
And wrenches down a blue gum bough
And clears his manly throat,
And into it like threshing wheat
Right sturdily he smote.
And beat the blazing grass until
His shirt was dripping wet;
And all the people watched him there
To see what luck he'd get,
"Gosh! don't he make the cinders fly,"
And, Golly, don't he sweat!"
But though they worked like Trojans all,
The fire still went ahead
So far as you could see around,
The very skies were red,
Sometimes the flames would start afresh,
Just where they thought it dead.
His men, too, quarreled 'mongst themselves
And some coves gave it best
And some said, "Light a fire in front,
And burn from east to west" --
But Bill he still kept sloggin' in,
And never took no rest.
Then through the crowd a cornstalk kid
Come ridin' to the spot
Says he to Bill, "Now take a spell,
You're lookin' very 'ot,
And if you'll only listen, why,
I'll tell you what is what.
"These coves as set your grass on fire,
There ain't no mortal doubt,
I've seen 'em ridin' here and there,
And pokin' round about;
It ain't no use your workin' here,
Until you finds them out.
"See yonder, where you beat the fire --
It's blazin' up again,
And fires are starting right and left
On Tipperary Plain,
Beating them out is useless quite,
Unless Heaven sends the rain.
Then Bill, he turns upon the boy,
"Oh, hold your tongue, you pup!"
But a cinder blew across the creek
While Bill stopped for a sup,
And fired the Albion paddocks, too --
It was a bitter cup;
Old Bill's heart was broke at last,
He had to chuck it up.
Moral
The run is England's Empire great,
The fire is the distress
That burns the stock they represent --
Prosperity you'll guess.
And the blue gum bough is the Home Rule Bill
That's making such a mess.
And Ireland green, of course I mean
By Paddymelon Flat;
All men can see the fire, of course,
Spreads on at such a bat,
But who are setting it alight,
I cannot tell you that.
But this I think all men will see,
And hold it very true --
"Don't quarrel with effects until
The cause is brought to view."
What is the cause? That cornstalk boy --
He seemed to think he knew.
|
Written by
Dylan Thomas |
A Letter To My Aunt Discussing The Correct Approach To Modern Poetry
To you, my aunt, who would explore
The literary Chankley Bore,
The paths are hard, for you are not
A literary Hottentot
But just a kind and cultured dame
Who knows not Eliot (to her shame).
Fie on you, aunt, that you should see
No genius in David G.,
No elemental form and sound
In T.S.E. and Ezra Pound.
Fie on you, aunt! I'll show you how
To elevate your middle brow,
And how to scale and see the sights
From modernist Parnassian heights.
First buy a hat, no Paris model
But one the Swiss wear when they yodel,
A bowler thing with one or two
Feathers to conceal the view;
And then in sandals walk the street
(All modern painters use their feet
For painting, on their canvas strips,
Their wives or mothers, minus hips).
Perhaps it would be best if you
Created something very new,
A dirty novel done in Erse
Or written backwards in Welsh verse,
Or paintings on the backs of vests,
Or Sanskrit psalms on lepers' chests.
But if this proved imposs-i-ble
Perhaps it would be just as well,
For you could then write what you please,
And modern verse is done with ease.
Do not forget that 'limpet' rhymes
With 'strumpet' in these troubled times,
And commas are the worst of crimes;
Few understand the works of Cummings,
And few James Joyce's mental slummings,
And few young Auden's coded chatter;
But then it is the few that matter.
Never be lucid, never state,
If you would be regarded great,
The simplest thought or sentiment,
(For thought, we know, is decadent);
Never omit such vital words
As belly, genitals and -----,
For these are things that play a part
(And what a part) in all good art.
Remember this: each rose is wormy,
And every lovely woman's germy;
Remember this: that love depends
On how the Gallic letter bends;
Remember, too, that life is hell
And even heaven has a smell
Of putrefying angels who
Make deadly whoopee in the blue.
These things remembered, what can stop
A poet going to the top?
A final word: before you start
The convulsions of your art,
Remove your brains, take out your heart;
Minus these curses, you can be
A genius like David G.
Take courage, aunt, and send your stuff
To Geoffrey Grigson with my luff,
And may I yet live to admire
How well your poems light the fire.
|
Written by
Mother Goose |
There was a little man, Who wooed a little maid,And he said, "Little maid, will you wed, wed, wed? I have little more to say, So will you, yea or nay,For least said is soonest mended-ded, ded, ded." The little maid replied, "Should I be your little bride,Pray what must we have for to eat, eat, eat? Will the flame that you're so rich in Light a fire in the kitchen?Or the little god of love turn the spit, spit, spit?"
|
Written by
Henry Lawson |
Australia's a big country
An' Freedom's humping bluey,
An' Freedom's on the wallaby
Oh! don't you hear 'er cooey?
She's just begun to boomerang,
She'll knock the tyrants silly,
She's goin' to light another fire
And boil another billy.
Our fathers toiled for bitter bread
While loafers thrived beside 'em,
But food to eat and clothes to wear,
Their native land denied 'em.
An' so they left their native land
In spite of their devotion,
An' so they came, or if they stole,
Were sent across the ocean.
Then Freedom couldn't stand the glare
O' Royalty's regalia,
She left the loafers where they were,
An' came out to Australia.
But now across the mighty main
The chains have come ter bind her –
She little thought to see again
The wrongs she left behind her.
Our parents toil'd to make a home –
Hard grubbin 'twas an' clearin' –
They wasn't crowded much with lords
When they was pioneering.
But now that we have made the land
A garden full of promise,
Old Greed must crook 'is dirty hand
And come ter take it from us.
So we must fly a rebel flag,
As others did before us,
And we must sing a rebel song
And join in rebel chorus.
We'll make the tyrants feel the sting
O' those that they would throttle;
They needn't say the fault is ours
If blood should stain the wattle!
|
Written by
Hilda Doolittle |
O Hymen king.
Hymen, O Hymen king,
what bitter thing is this?
what shaft, tearing my heart?
what scar, what light, what fire
searing my eye-balls and my eyes with flame?
nameless, O spoken name,
king, lord, speak blameless Hymen.
Why do you blind my eyes?
why do you dart and pulse
till all the dark is home,
then find my soul
and ruthless draw it back?
scaling the scaleless,
opening the dark?
speak, nameless, power and might;
when will you leave me quite?
when will you break my wings
or leave them utterly free
to scale heaven endlessly?
A bitter, broken thing,
my heart, O Hymen lord,
yet neither drought nor sword
baffles men quite,
why must they feign to fear
my virgin glance?
feigned utterly or real
why do they shrink?
my trance frightens them,
breaks the dance,
empties the market-place;
if I but pass they fall
back, frantically;
must always people mock?
unless they shrink and reel
as in the temple
at your uttered will.
O Hymen king,
lord, greatest, power, might,
look for my face is dark,
burnt with your light,
your fire, O Hymen lord;
is there none left
can equal me
in ecstasy, desire?
is there none left
can bear with me
the kiss of your white fire?
is there not one,
Phrygian or frenzied Greek,
poet, song-swept, or bard,
one meet to take from me
this bitter power of song,
one fit to speak, Hymen,
your praises, lord?
May I not wed
as you have wed?
may it not break, beauty,
from out my hands, my head, my feet?
may Love not lie beside me
till his heat
burn me to ash?
may he not comfort me, then,
spent of all that fire and heat,
still, ashen-white and cool
as the wet laurels,
white, before your feet
step on the mountain-slope,
before your fiery hand
lift up the mantle
covering flower and land,
as a man lifts,
O Hymen, from his bride,
(cowering with woman eyes,) the veil?
O Hymen lord, be kind.
|
Written by
Amy Lowell |
He perches in the slime, inert,
Bedaubed with iridescent dirt.
The oil upon the puddles dries
To colours like a peacock's eyes,
And half-submerged tomato-cans
Shine scaly, as leviathans
Oozily crawling through the mud.
The ground is here and there bestud
With lumps of only part-burned coal.
His duty is to glean the whole,
To pick them from the filth, each one,
To hoard them for the hidden sun
Which glows within each fiery core
And waits to be made free once more.
Their sharp and glistening edges cut
His stiffened fingers. Through the smut
Gleam red the wounds which will not shut.
Wet through and shivering he kneels
And digs the slippery coals; like eels
They slide about. His force all spent,
He counts his small accomplishment.
A half-a-dozen clinker-coals
Which still have fire in their souls.
Fire! And in his thought there burns
The topaz fire of votive urns.
He sees it fling from hill to hill,
And still consumed, is burning still.
Higher and higher leaps the flame,
The smoke an ever-shifting frame.
He sees a Spanish Castle old,
With silver steps and paths of gold.
From myrtle bowers comes the plash
Of fountains, and the emerald flash
Of parrots in the orange trees,
Whose blossoms pasture humming bees.
He knows he feeds the urns whose smoke
Bears visions, that his master-stroke
Is out of dirt and misery
To light the fire of poesy.
He sees the glory, yet he knows
That others cannot see his shows.
To them his smoke is sightless, black,
His votive vessels but a pack
Of old discarded shards, his fire
A peddler's; still to him the pyre
Is incensed, an enduring goal!
He sighs and grubs another coal.
|
Written by
Francesco Petrarch |
CANZONE XX. Ben mi credea passar mio tempo omai. HE CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT SEEING HER, BUT WOULD NOT DIE THAT HE MAY STILL LOVE HER. As pass'd the years which I have left behind,To pass my future years I fondly thought,Amid old studies, with desires the same;But, from my lady since I fail to findThe accustom'd aid, the work himself has wroughtLet Love regard my tempter who became;Yet scarce I feel the shameThat, at my age, he makes me thus a thiefOf that bewitching lightFor which my life is steep'd in cureless grief;In youth I better mightHave ta'en the part which now I needs must take,For less dishonour boyish errors make. [Pg 187]Those sweet eyes whence alone my life had healthWere ever of their high and heavenly charmsSo kind to me when first my thrall begun,That, as a man whom not his proper wealth,But some extern yet secret succour arms,I lived, with them at ease, offending none:Me now their glances shunAs one injurious and importunate,Who, poor and hungry, didMyself the very act, in better stateWhich I, in others, chid.From mercy thus if envy bar me, beMy amorous thirst and helplessness my plea. In divers ways how often have I triedIf, reft of these, aught mortal could retainE'en for a single day in life my frame:But, ah! my soul, which has no rest beside,Speeds back to those angelic lights again;And I, though but of wax, turn to their flame,Planting my mind's best aimWhere less the watch o'er what I love is sure:As birds i' th' wild wood green,Where less they fear, will sooner take the lure,So on her lovely mien,Now one and now another look I turn,Wherewith at once I nourish me and burn. Strange sustenance! upon my death I feed,And live in flames, a salamander rare!And yet no marvel, as from love it flows.A blithe lamb 'mid the harass'd fleecy breed.Whilom I lay, whom now to worst despairFortune and Love, as is their wont, expose.Winter with cold and snows,With violets and roses spring is rife,And thus if I obtainSome few poor aliments of else weak life,Who can of theft complain?So rich a fair should be content with this,Though others live on hers, if nought she miss. [Pg 188]Who knows not what I am and still have been,From the first day I saw those beauteous eyes,Which alter'd of my life the natural mood?Traverse all lands, explore each sea between,Who can acquire all human qualities?There some on odours live by Ind's vast flood;Here light and fire are foodMy frail and famish'd spirit to appease!Love! more or nought bestow;With lordly state low thrift but ill agrees;Thou hast thy darts and bow,Take with thy hands my not unwilling breath,Life were well closed with honourable death. Pent flames are strongest, and, if left to swell,Not long by any means can rest unknown,This own I, Love, and at your hands was taught.When I thus silent burn'd, you knew it well;Now e'en to me my cries are weary grown,Annoy to far and near so long that wrought.O false world! O vain thought!O my hard fate! where now to follow thee?Ah! from what meteor lightSprung in my heart the constant hope which she,Who, armour'd with your might,Drags me to death, binds o'er it as a chain?Yours is the fault, though mine the loss and pain. Thus bear I of true love the pains along,Asking forgiveness of another's debt,And for mine own; whose eyes should rather shunThat too great light, and to the siren's songMy ears be closed: though scarce can I regretThat so sweet poison should my heart o'errun.Yet would that all were done,That who the first wound gave my last would deal;For, if I right divine,It were best mercy soon my fate to seal;Since not a chance is mineThat he may treat me better than before,'Tis well to die if death shut sorrow's door. [Pg 189]My song! with fearless feetThe field I keep, for death in flight were shame.Myself I needs must blameFor these laments; tears, sighs, and death to meet,Such fate for her is sweet.Own, slave of Love, whose eyes these rhymes may catch,Earth has no good that with my grief can match.
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Written by
Marriott Edgar |
Mr. Ramsbottom went to the races,
A thing as he'd ne'er done before,
And as luck always follers beginners,
Won five pounds, no-less and no-more.
He felt himself suddenly tempted
To indulge in some reckless orgee,
So he went to a caffy-a-teerer
And had a dressed crab with his tea.
He were crunching the claws at the finish
And wondering what next he would do,
Then his thoughts turned to home and to Mother,
And what she would say when she knew.
For Mother were dead against racing
And said as she thought 'twere a sin
For people to gamble their money
Unless they were certain to win.
These homely domestic reflections
Seemed to cast quite a gloom on Pa's day
He thought he'd best take home a present
And square up the matter that way.
' Twere a bit ofa job to decide on
What best to select for this 'ere,
So he started to look in shop winders
In hopes as he'd get some idea.
He saw some strange stuff in a fruit shop
Like leeks with their nobby ends gone,
It were done up in bundles like firewood-
Said Pa to the Shopman, "What's yon?"
"That's Ass-paragus-what the Toffs eat"
Were the answer; said Pa "That 'll suit,
I'd best take a couple of bundles,
For Mother's a bobby for fruit."
He started off home with his purchase
And pictured Ma all the next week
Eating sparagus fried with her bacon
Or mashed up in bubble-and-squeak.
He knew when she heard he'd been racing
She'd very nigh talk him to death,
So he thought as he'd call in the ' Local'
To strengthen his nerve and his breath.
He had hardly got up to the counter
When a friend of his walked in the bar,
He said "What ye got in the bundle?"
"A present for Mother," said Pa.
It's 'sparagus stuff what the Toffs eat "
His friend said "It's a rum-looking plant,
Can I have the green ends for my rabbits?"
said Pa "Aye, cut off what you want.
He cut all the tips off one bundle,
Then some more friends arrived one by one,
And all of them seemed to keep rabbits
Pa had no green ends left when they'd done.
When he got home the 'ouse were in dark ness,
So he slipped in as sly as a fox,
Laid the 'sparagus on kitchen table
And crept up to bed in his socks.
He got in without waking Mother,
A truly remarkable feat,
And pictured her telling the neighbours
As 'twere 'sparagus-what the toffs eat.
But when he woke up in the morning
It were nigh on a quarter to ten,
There were no signs of Mother, or breakfast
Said Pa, "What's she done with her-sen?"
He shouted "What's up theer in t' kitchen?"
She replied, "You do well to enquire,
Them bundles of chips as you brought home
Is so damp... I can't light the fire."
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