When the ship goes wop (with a wiggle between)And steward falls into the soup-tureen,And trunks begin to slide;When Nursey lies on the floor in a heap,And Mummy tells you to let her sleep,And you aren’t waked or washed or dressed,Why, then you will know (if you haven’t guessed)You’re ‘Fifty North and Forty West!’
Which you reckon too much by five shillings or ten;But light your churchwardenAnd judge it according,When I’ve told you the troubles of poor honest men.From the Capes of the Delaware,As you are well aware,We sail which tobacco for England-but then,Our own British cruisers,They watch us come through, sirs,And they press half a score of us…
An’ ‘e wonders because ‘e is frequent deceasedEre ‘e’s fit for to serve as a soldier.Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,So-oldier ~OF~ the Queen!Now all you recruities what’s drafted to-day,You shut up your rag-box an’ ‘ark to my lay,An’ I’ll sing you a soldier as…
The godly Agur counted themAnd put them in a book —Those Four Tremendous CursesWith which mankind is cursed;But a Servant when He ReignethOld Agur entered first.An Handmaid that is MistressWe need not call upon.A Fool when he is full of MeatWill fall asleep anon.An Odious Woman MarriedMay bear a babe and mend;But a Servant when…
We’ve rode and fought and ate and drunk as rations come to hand,Together for a year and more around this stinkin’ land:Now you are goin’ home again, but we must see it through.We needn’t tell we liked you well. Good-by – good luck to you!You ‘ad no special call to come, and so you doubled…
But, oh, the little cargo-boats, that sail the wet seas roun’,They’re just the same as you an’ me a-plyin’ up an’ down!Plyin’ up an’ down, Jenny, ‘angin’ round the Yard,All the way by Fratton tram down to Portsmouth ‘Ard;Anythin’ for business, an’ we’re growin’ old —Plyin’ up an’ down, Jenny, waitin’ in the cold!The Liner…
Petrol nigh at end and something wrong with a sprocketMade him speer for the nearest town, when lo! at the crosswaysFour blank letterless arms the virginal signpost extended.‘Look!’ thundered Hugh the Radical. ‘This is the England weboast of–Bland, white-bellied, obese, but utterly useless for business.They are repainting the signs and have left the job in…
And can logically predicate his finish by his start;But the English–ah, the English!–they are quite a race apart.Their psychology is bovine, their outlook crude and raw.They abandon vital matters to be tickled with a straw;But the straw that they were tickled with-the chaff that they were fed with–They convert into a weaver’s beam to break…
He called to him Hobdenius-a Briton of the Clay,Saying: ‘What about that River-piece for layin’ in to hay?’And the aged Hobden answered: ‘I remember as a ladMy father told your father that she wanted dreenin’ bad.An’ the more that you neeglect her the less you’ll get her clean.Have it jest as you’ve a mind to,…
Song of the Dead in the South — in the sun by their skeleton horses,Where the warrigal whimpers and bays through the dustof the sear river-courses.Song of the Dead in the East — in the heat-rotted jungle hollows,Where the dog-ape barks in the kloof —in the brake of the buffalo-wallows.Song of the Dead in the…
