CONTEMPORARY FOLK-SONGS.
"The Grave of the Boorzh-waw-ze".
[The following folk-song is believed to be a local (and adult) version of the ballad which, according to The Times, is now being sung by Communist children in the Glasgow Proletarian Schools, with the refrain:—
"Class-conscious we are singing,
Class-conscious all are we,
For Labour now is digging
The grave of the Boorzh-waw-ze."
The metre is a bit jumpy, and so are the ideas, but you know what folk-songs are.]
Look, we are digging a large round hole,
With a Hey and a Ho and a Hee-haw-hee!
To put the abominable tyrant in—
The Minister, the Master, the Mandarin;
And never a bloom above shall blow
But scarlet-runners in a row to show
That this is the grave of the Boorzh-waw-ze,
With a Hi-ti-tiddle-i! ... Honk, honk!
Who do we put in the large round hole,
With a Hey and a Ho and a Hee-haw-hee?
The blackcoat, the parasite, the keeper of the laws,
Who works with his head instead of with his paws;
The doctor, the parson, the pressman, the mayor,
The poet and the barrister, they'll all be there,
Snug in the grave of the Boorzh-waw-ze,
With a Hi-ti-tiddle-i! ... Honk, honk!
Dig, dig, dig, it will have to be big,
With a Hey and a Ho and a Hee-haw-hee!
One great cavity, and then one more
For the bones of the Secret'ry of State for War;
The editor, the clerk and, of course, old Thomas,
We wring their necks and we fling them from us
Into the grave of the Boorzh-waw-ze,
With a Hi-ti-tiddle-i! ... Honk, honk!
Peace and Brotherhood, that's our line,
With a Hey and a Ho and a Hee-haw-hee!
But nobody, of course, can co-exist
In the same small planet with a Communist;
Man is a brotherhood, that we know,
And the whole damn family has got to go
Plomp in the grave of the Boorzh-waw-ze,
With a Hi-ti-tiddle-i! ... Honk, honk!
Too many people are alive to-day,
With a Hey and a Ho and a Hee-haw-hee!
Red already is the Red, Red Sea
With the blood of the brutal Boorzh-waw-ze,
And that's what the rest of the globe will be—
Believe me!
We'll stand at last with the Red Flag furled*
In a perfectly void vermilion world
With the citizens (if any) who have not been hurled
Into the grave of the Boorzh-waw-ze,
With a Hi-ti-tiddle-i ... Honk, honk!
A. P. H.
*Note.—In the Somerset version the word is "unfurled," which makes better sense but scans even worse than the rest of the song. I have therefore followed the Gloucestershire tradition.