Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Anti-War 'Nursery Rhyme' discovered


Transcription:

SING A SONG OF EUROPE

HIGHLY CIVILISED;
FOUR AND TWENTY NATIONS
WHOLLY HYPNOTISED –
WHEN THE BATTLE OPENS
THE BULLETS START TO SING:
ISN’T THAT A SILLY WAY
TO ACT FOR ANY KING?
THE KINGS ARE IN THE BACKGROUND
ISSUING COMMANDS
THE QUEENS ARE IN THE PARLOUR
PER ETIQUETTE’S DEMANDS.
THE BANKERS IN THE COUNTING-HOUSE
ARE BUSY MULTIPLYING;
THE COMMON PEOPLE AT THE FRONT
ARE DOING ALL THE DYING.


Thanks for this (and the satirical ‘If’ parody below), to Alison Ronan, who found it in the papers of a local Manchester Conscientious Objector, Arthur Turtle.
Ali is a feminist historian interested in dissent and resistance. Her current research is about anti-war and pacifist women in Manchester and North-West England, 1914-1918.
Her book 'A Small Vital Flame: anti-war women in NW England 1914-1918’ is published by The Scholars' Press.



(A Pacifist’s Parody on Kipling’s “If”)


If you can talk and not get bread and water,

Or if reported take your pegging like a man;

If you can scrub like any woman’s daughter,

And eat your dinner from a rusty can;


If you can “pick that step up” every morning,

And “swing those arms” as round the ring you crawl;

If you can rise before the daylight’s dawning,

And wash your share of landing in the hall;


If you can take the daily Wormwood rumour,

With little more than just a pinch of salt;

And treat as nought the officer’s ill-humour,

But simply think his liver is at fault;


If you can bear to hear the news you be given,

Change and increase till it’s nowise true;

And though to tell it truly you have striven,

Keep calm when its new version comes to you;


If you can hope and not get tired of hoping,

For the freedom which must come soon or late;

And never let your comrades see you hoping,

But patiently and gladly work and wait;


If you can watch your shadow getting thinner,

And still with smiling face go bravely on;

If you can think of your last decent dinner,

And not complain and think you’re put upon;


Then, my brother, though all the world may scorn you,

And make your name a jest for thoughtless folk;

You’re the saviour of the country that has borne you,

You’ll surely break Conscription’s evil yoke.


Written by William Harrison.
in Wormwood Scrubs, March, [year missing from typescript]


An online search finds inter alia that the nursery rhyme was published anonymously in: THE IRON WORKER Vol.1 No 4 1928, but the 'If'' parody does not appear to have been widely distributed, if at all.(The fact that this page looks as though it was produced on a duplicator, however, suggests an attempt to make it more widely known, at some point.) See comment below with reference to William Harrison.

2 comments:

  1. For another anti-war poem, The Deserter by Albert Young, see http://smothpubs.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/a-plea-for-rhyme-and-reason.html

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  2. About the author of 'If' as above:-
    "In July The Imperial War Museum London will open new First World War Galleries that include object that highlight what it meant to be a conscientious objector during WWI. Objects include the Holy Bible of William Harrison who was sentenced to hard labour by a court martial..." - http://bridgetwhelan.com/2014/05/15/today-is-international-conscientious-objectors-day/

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