THE BUN-SHOP.
O DAMN those marble tables: makes me larf
To think I’ve finished with them. I believe
If you rubbed hard on each one with your sleeve,
You’d find cut on them some gel’s epitaph.
They look like tombstones, don’t they? in a row
Quietly waiting in a mason’s yard.
Seein’ them there cruel and white and hard
One might ha’ guessed, I think, how things would go.
But we don’t heed no warning, gels like me,
And so I stayed, and now they’ve got my name
Carved deep, with something written about shame
For the next gel (when her turn comes) to see.
One comfort though, if God damns us who fell
He can’t find worse to ’urt us, not in ’Ell.
THE FRIED FISH-SHOP.
THE upper clawses they don’t like the smell
Nor they don’t need to. They can pay for food,
But we who sometimes cawn’t, it does us good.
Lord, what a life to ’ave fried fish to sell!
Warm all day long and nuthin’ much to do
And always a hot bit if you’re inclined.
Shut all day Sundays and if you’ve a mind
Always go out and pitch into a Jew.
But wanting won’t mend ’oles up in your socks
Nor cure that ’ungry feeling when you stands
Clappin’ your stummick with your empty ’ands
And thinking gently of a wooden box
Where they will lay you at the parish charge
Straight if you’re small and doubled if you’re large.
THE STREETS BEHIND THE TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD.
THE quiet folk who live in Kensington
Mothers of pleasant girls and worthy wives
Living at ease their comfortable lives
Don’t think what roots their homes are built upon,
Don’t think, or wouldn’t listen if you shewed
That beyond cure by love or change by hate
Like hooded lepers at each corner wait,
The streets behind the Tottenham Court Road.
Row upon row the phantom houses stain
The sweetness of the air and not a day
Dies, but some woman’s child turns down that way
Along those streets and is not seen again.
And only God can in his mercy say
Which is more cruel, Kensington or they.
THE YORKSHIRE GREY.
THE Yorkshire Grey like any other pub,
Quietly blazes till the final shout
“Time’s-up” sends the companions tumbling out,
Giving their lips a last reluctant rub.
And if you’re passing by on any day
You’ll hear a woman with a barrel organ,
Sing in a high cracked voice what sounds like “Morgen,
Morgen kommt nie und heute is mir weh,”
And every day whether its rain or shine
She holds an old umbrella with a handle
Of curiously carved silver. Whether scandal
Or tragedy, its no affair of mine.
Why should I care then when some drunken feller
Sends her to blazes, her and her umbrella.
WARDOUR STREET.
THERE’S a small cafe off the Avenue
Where Alphonse, that old sinner, used to fix
A five-course dinner up at one and six,
And trust to luck and youth to pull him through.
I can’t remember much about the wine
Except that it was ninepence for the quart
Called claret and was nothing of the sort,
Cheap like the rest and like the rest divine.
But Alphonse, I suppose, is long since sped
And madame’s knitting needles rusted through
And even Marguerite, like us she flew
To wait on, waited on by death instead.
Well Alphonse, well Madame, well Marguerite
They’ve no more use for us in Wardour Street.