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.