The Bohemian
Up in my garret bleak and bare I tilted back on my broken chair, And my three old pals were with me there, Hunger and Thirst and Cold; Hunger scowled at his scurvy mate:
To A Tycoon
Since much has been your mirth And fair your fate, Friend, leave your lot of earth Less desolate. With frailing overdue, Why don’t you try The bit of God in you To justify? Try
The Ballad Of How Macpherson Held The Floor
Said President MacConnachie to Treasurer MacCall: “We ought to have a piper for our next Saint Andrew’s Ball. Yon squakin’ saxophone gives me the syncopated gripes. I’m sick of jazz, I want to hear
Armistice Day (1953)
Don’t jeer because we celebrate Armistice Day, Though thirty years of sorry fate Have passed away. Though still we gaurd the Sacred Flame, And fly the Flag, That World War Two with grief and
The Artist
All day with brow of anxious thought The dictionary through, Amid a million words he sought The sole one that would do. He wandered on from pub to pub Yet never ceased to seek
The Cat With Wings
You never saw a cat with wings, I’ll bet a dollar well, I did; ‘Twas one of those fantastic things One runs across in old Madrid. A walloping big tom it was, (Maybe of
A Song Of Suicide
Deeming that I were better dead, “How shall I kill myself?” I said. Thus mooning by the river Seine I sought extinction without pain, When on a bridge I saw a flash Of lingerie
A Rusty Nail
I ran a nail into my hand, The wound was hard to heal; So bitter was the pain to stand I thought how it would feel, To have spikes thrust through hands and feet,
Old Scout
Is it because I’m bent and grey, Though wearing rather well, That I can slickly get away With all the yarns I tell? Is it because my bleary eye No longer beams with youth
Wrestling Match
What guts he had, the Dago lad Who fought that Frenchman grim with guile; For nigh an hour they milled like mad, And mauled the mat in rare old style. Then up and launched
Child Lover
Drunk or sober Uncle Jim Played the boy; Never glum or sour or grim, Oozin’ joy. Most folks thought he was no good, Blamin’ him; But where kiddies were, you could Bank on Jim.
His Boys
“I’m going, Billy, old fellow. Hist, lad! Don’t make any noise. There’s Boches to beat all creation, the pitch of a bomb away. I’ve fixed the note to your collar, you’ve got to get
The Haggis Of Private McPhee
“Hae ye heard whit ma auld mither’s postit tae me? It fair maks me hamesick,” says Private McPhee. “And whit did she send ye?” says Private McPhun, As he cockit his rifle and bleezed
The Ballad Of Touch-The-Button Nell
Beyond the Rocking Bridge it lies, the burg of evil fame, The huts where hive and swarm and thrive the sisterhood of shame. Through all the night each cabin light goes out and then
The Booby-Trap
I’m crawlin’ out in the mangolds to bury wot’s left o’ Joe Joe, my pal, and a good un (God! ‘ow it rains and rains). I’m sick o’ seein’ him lyin’ like a ‘eap