Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis: Verses about Mother

MA-A-AMMY! Ma-a-ammy!
The sun's gone east
And he's left out west
Where, in old days, the sun shone best.
Ma-a-ammy! Ma-a-ammy!
What have you done to poor ole Uncle Sammy?
You would go talkin'
In them dear ole silent days.
You would go squawkin'
Them silly ole jazz-time lays.
Ma-a-ammy! Ma-a-ammy!
Since you introdooced the din
We have done the dollars in -
Ma-Ma-Ma-a-ammy!

Say, ole lady, you did start sump'in' when you began shootin' off your mouth in the fillums. Here we was, sittin' pretty, when Al had to go an' hand you that sob-stuff an' shoot up the whole works. Say, ain't you never heard Shakespeare's wisecracks about silence being golden? I'll say it was.

The fourth largest industry in good ole U.S.A. while it kept its mouth shut! But from the minute the first squawks came out of them ole amplifiers the Britishers put the skids under us, an' we ain't stopped slidin' yet.

Who was it said that it was not until Hollywood started to say sump'in' that she proved herself plumb dumb? say, isn't that the truth?

MA-A-AMMY! Ma-a-ammy!
We was perched right up
On the world's high top,
But you spoke your piece an' we done a flop.
Ma-a-mmy! Ma-a-ammy!
Why didn't you stay in good ole Alabamy?
Ma-a-am -

Aw! What's the use? Hand us a snort of rye someone. What's the sense of talkin' to try to prove talkin' ain't good business? We been horsewoggled!

The sun burns hotly thro' the gums
As down the road old Rogan comes
The hatter from the lonely hut
Beside the track to Woollybutt.
He likes to spend his Christmas with us here.
He says a man gets sort of strange
Living alone without a change,
Gets sort of settled in his way;
And so he comes each Christmas day
To share a bite of tucker and a beer.

Dad and the boys have nought to do,
Except a stray odd job or two.
Along the fence or in the yard,
'It ain't a day for workin' hard.'
Says Dad. 'One day a year don't matter much.'
And then dishevelled, hot and red,
Mum, thro' the doorway puts her head
And says, 'This Christmas cooking, My!
The sun's near fit for cooking by.'
Upon her word she never did see such.

Your fault,' says Dad, 'you know it is.
Plum puddin'! on a day like this,
And roasted turkeys! Spare me days,
I can't get over women's ways.
In climates such as this the thing's all wrong.
A bit of cold corned beef an' bread
Would do us very well instead.'
Then Rogan said, 'You're right; it's hot.
It makes a feller drink a lot.'
And Dad gets up and says, 'Well, come along.'

The dinner's served - full bite and sup.
'Come on,' says Mum, 'Now all sit up.'
The meal takes on a festive air;
And even father eats his share
And passes up his plate to have some more.
He laughs and says it's Christmas time,
'That's cookin', Mum. The stuffin's prime.'
But Rogan pauses once to praise,
Then eats as tho' he'd starved for days.
And pitches turkey bones outside the door.

The sun burns hotly thro' the gums,
The chirping of the locusts comes
Across the paddocks, parched and grey.
'Whew!' wheezes Father. 'What a day!'
And sheds his vest. For coats no man had need.
Then Rogan shoves his plate aside
And sighs, as sated men have sighed,
At many boards in many climes
On many other Christmas times.
'By gum!' he says, 'That was a slap-up feed!'

Then, with his black pipe well alight,
Old Rogan brings the kids delight
By telling o'er again his yarns
Of Christmas tide 'mid English barns
When he was, long ago, a farmer's boy.
His old eyes glisten as he sees
Half glimpses of old memories,
Of whitened fields and winter snows,
And yuletide logs and mistletoes,
And all that half-forgotten, hallowed joy.

The children listen, mouths agape,
And see a land with no escape
Fro biting cold and snow and frost
A land to all earth's brightness lost,
A strange and freakish Christmas land to them.
But Rogan, with his dim old eyes
Grown far away and strangely wise
Talks on; and pauses but to ask
'Ain't there a dropp more in that cask?'
And father nods; but Mother says 'Ahem!'

The sun slants redly thro' the gums
As quietly the evening comes,
And Rogan gets his old grey mare,
That matches well his own grey hair,
And rides away into the setting sun.
'Ah, well,' says Dad. 'I got to say
I never spent a lazier day.
We ought to get that top fence wired.'
'My!' sighs poor Mum. 'But I am tired!
An' all that washing up still to be done.'

Brothers; even those of you who are already in the sear and yellow leaf, and full of years and iniquity,
Sometimes, I doubt not, let your thoughts go back to those days of antiquity
When mother tucked you into your little bed.
After your little prayers were said;
And, having said goodnight,
She most inconsiderately took away the light.
Then came, my brothers, that dread half-hour in the day of a child;
When your mind was filled with weird imaginings and fancies wild
Of Bogey-men and Hobgoblins, Ogres and Demons; so that, for a space, you lay
Filled with a child's vague fear of the dark, and longing for the day.
Then, to comfort you, there came the thought
That guardian angels, as you had been taught,
Hovered ever near
To watch over timid little boys and girls and still their fear.
Is not that what other said?
And, in your childish mind you pictured a feathered friend roosting benevolently
at the foot of your bed.
Then were you filled with solace deep;
You sighed contentedly and went to sleep.


Brother:
I would speak to you of another kind of mother;
Of our political mamma or historical mater:
Mrs. Britannia, to wit, who lives on the other side of the equator.
You have doubtless seen her pictured upon certain coins of the realm,
Sitting on the sharp edge of a shield, holding a picthfork, and wearing an absurd
and elaborate helm.
That is the lady; our dear old mum;
Mother of a large and parti-colored family that has given her much trouble and
promises more in the years to come.
Hitherto she has tucked us into bed.
And, for a trifling cash consideration, to allay our dread,
Has, so to speak, left us the light
In the shape of a few more or less efficient warships that might or might not be
of use in a fight;
But that was neither here nor there
So long as they served their purpose, and, like a candle of childhood's days,
dissipated the shadows and the attendant thoughts that scare.
But, behold, my brother, we are no longer an infant nation.
We have doffed our swaddling clothes, and have gone into pants, and top-hats,
and motor-coats, and split-skirts, and other habilments of adult
civilisation.
We are no longer young enough to pet and fondle, to nurse and bounce and dandle;
And, behold, mother has taken away the candle!
This is well enough;


And nobody would be complaining if the dear old lady didn't try to fill us up with
the stuff
That was designed alone for infant ears,
And to allay imaginery fears.
She forgets, the poor old worried mum, that we have, so to speak, arrived now
at years of discretion,
And (if you pardon the expression)
Endeavors to pull her trusting offsping's leg with the old, old tale
Of the beautiful and ever watchful guardian angel that will never fail
To banish the naughty, nasty bogeys, the wicked ogres that lurk
Around our little bed.... Brother, that guardian angel gag won't work!
We happen to know a little about this saffron-colored seraph, this Mongolian
cherub to whose tender care our doting parent would leave us;
And, unless our eyes deceive us,
He bears a most remarkable reseblance to the ogre that we fear!
We have not the least doubt that he will most obligingly hover near
Our little cot.
But we are very, very anxious concerning certain little childish possessions
we have got.
We have out own private opinions about the sort of watch he will keep;
And we have wisely, if rebelliously, decided that WE WILL NOT GO TO SLEEP!!


Speaking of guardian angels and other birds,
I should just like to say a few words
In conclusion
In reference to this guardian angel illusion.
It will be remebered that mother herself, when she was young, and not so
handy with the flatiron of war as she is to-day,
Had a little experience of her own in that way.
It was a Saxon guardian angel, with fierce whiskers and a spear,
That poor mother put her maiden trust in: and it would appear
That he treated her in a very shameful and ungentlemanly style;
For, after he had expelled the Scot burglar or the Pict fowl-thief or whoever it was,
he remarked, with a sinister smile:
'Well, not that I am here,
My dear,
I think I'll stay for a while.'
And that's how mother got married....he did marry her in the end, or so I
understand,
And made an honest woman of her, and in time they built up a very respectable home
in the land.
But, after all, despite his morals, he was a white man, and a decent sort of fellow.
And things miht have been very different if his color had happened to be yellow.
Since then, if any reliance can be placed on the histories that adorn my shelf,
Mother has gone in rather largely for the guardian business herself.


And this she has done, I must confess,
With considerable success.
She has played the benign guardian angel, at one time and another, to quite a
number of simple and unsophisticated folk,
Who, when her guardianship has become too insistent, have not always appeared to
appreciate the joke.
But, my brother, this is what I should vey much like to know:
Since the old girl knows so much about this thing through personal experience,
why does she want to go
And put up that rusty old bluff on her innocent and confiding little son?
In the circumstances there is only one thing for him to do, and the lesson cannot be
learned too soon: The only reliable guardian angel for children of his age
IS A GUN!
I don't know what you think about it, brother;
But, speaking privately and strictly between ourselves, I think it's pretty crook
on the part of mother.