MORE RHYME THAN REASON
MONDAY
Lickety-klang! Lickety-klang! Boom-a-lang! Boom-a-lang! Boom! Swishity-swish! Kettle and dish! Out of the kitchen and room! Room! Room!
Steam up the water hotter and hotter, Tin an’ enamel-ware, linen an’ camel-hair Into the boiler and tubs, tubs, tubs! Erin’s fair daughter, prime for the slaughter, Tumbled and tawny-like, hefty and brawny-like, Promptly at seven and rubs, rubs, rubs!
Mouth like a grotto! No hippopotto Rushes his ration so, shuns mastication so— No hippopotto would dare, dare, dare! Coffee and tater—into the crater, Front of stalactites, molars for back-bites Crunching away with a tear, tear, tear!
Blazes are dwindling, shove in the kindling, All the pajamas on—see how the Amazon Mixes the pudding of duds, duds, duds! Skirts and chemises, shirts, B. V. D-ses, Stir them around again—unwound and wound again, Swirled in a vortex of suds, suds, suds!
Rinse ’em and ring ’em, twist ’em and sling ’em Out of the stewing-place into the bluing-place, Whiter and whiter they grow, grow, grow! One more ablution—careful, that ruchin’! Purged all the finery, pinned on the linery, Swinging away there like snow, snow, snow!
Wash-lady Bridget’s weary old digits— Would she complain of it? Fume at the strain! of it? Not if she dropped in the way, way, way! Now ends the tubbing—home to more grubbing, Back to that man of hers and that wee clan of hers, Back at the end of the day, day, day!