Beethameer, Beethameer, bully of Britain, With your face as fat as a farmer's bum; Though you pose in private as a playful kitten Though the public you poison are pretty well dumb, They shall turn on their betrayer when the time is come. The cousins you cheated shall recover their nerve And give you the thrashing you richly deserve.
In kitchen, in cupboard, in club-room, in mews, In palace, in privy, your paper we meet Nagging at our nostrils with its nasty news, Sucking the silly from a septic teat, Leading the lost with lies to defeat; But defeat shall force them to find the nerve To give you the thrashing you richly deserve.
To your yoke, you suggest, we should offer our necks, We should learn from your lips the laws to spell Of Art, of Religion, of Science, of Sex, You appear as the prophet, your periods swell. Are you sure you're our Saviour? We're certain you smell: All of us itching in every nerve To give you the thrashing you richly deserve.
Each talented contributor tells what he thinks. A lady novelist has given her view, A father of fourteen, a professor of stinks, A beater, a bone-setter, a curate from Key; So you take us for trees, so you think, do you, We'll forget your games and forgive your nerve? No, we'll give you the thrashing you richly deserve.
Heathcliffe before you was a newspaper peer: I'm the sea-dog, he said, who shall steer this ship; I advertise idiocy, uplift, and fear, I succour the State, I shoot from the hip; He grasped at God but God gave him the slip. Life gave him one look and he lost his nerve, So you'll get the thrashing you richly deserve.
10,000 Cyclostyle copies of this for aerial distribution.
That's brilliant. I haven't The Orators - I've been reading an anthology of 30s British poets lately, and was very enamoured with Auden, who I'd never read at any length before. There's been a post planned on it for a bit in fact, albeit partly more on the strange haute bourgeois Stalinism of lesser lights like C Day Lewis...
The book to get, IMO, is The English Auden (f&f I think), which has all the good pre-war stuff. After that he goes off the boil a bit. And starts revising his early poems to make them worse.
Really trustworthy blog. sesli Please keep updating with great posts like this one. sesli sohbet I have booked marked your site and am about to email it
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I suppose that's why one should side with Red Ken against that journalist...
Beethameer, Beethameer, bully of Britain,
With your face as fat as a farmer's bum;
Though you pose in private as a playful kitten
Though the public you poison are pretty well dumb,
They shall turn on their betrayer when the time is come.
The cousins you cheated shall recover their nerve
And give you the thrashing you richly deserve.
In kitchen, in cupboard, in club-room, in mews,
In palace, in privy, your paper we meet
Nagging at our nostrils with its nasty news,
Sucking the silly from a septic teat,
Leading the lost with lies to defeat;
But defeat shall force them to find the nerve
To give you the thrashing you richly deserve.
To your yoke, you suggest, we should offer our necks,
We should learn from your lips the laws to spell
Of Art, of Religion, of Science, of Sex,
You appear as the prophet, your periods swell.
Are you sure you're our Saviour? We're certain you smell:
All of us itching in every nerve
To give you the thrashing you richly deserve.
Each talented contributor tells what he thinks.
A lady novelist has given her view,
A father of fourteen, a professor of stinks,
A beater, a bone-setter, a curate from Key;
So you take us for trees, so you think, do you,
We'll forget your games and forgive your nerve?
No, we'll give you the thrashing you richly deserve.
Heathcliffe before you was a newspaper peer:
I'm the sea-dog, he said, who shall steer this ship;
I advertise idiocy, uplift, and fear,
I succour the State, I shoot from the hip;
He grasped at God but God gave him the slip.
Life gave him one look and he lost his nerve,
So you'll get the thrashing you richly deserve.
10,000 Cyclostyle copies of this for aerial distribution.
Auden, of course, from The Orators (Beethameer = Beaverbrook / Rothermere). The "10,000 Cyclostyle copies..." endnote perfects it.
I was delighted, incidentally, by the recent Auden subtitle to this very blog.
I advertise idiocy, uplift, and fear
That's brilliant. I haven't The Orators - I've been reading an anthology of 30s British poets lately, and was very enamoured with Auden, who I'd never read at any length before. There's been a post planned on it for a bit in fact, albeit partly more on the strange haute bourgeois Stalinism of lesser lights like C Day Lewis...
*haven't read The Orators*
The book to get, IMO, is The English Auden (f&f I think), which has all the good pre-war stuff. After that he goes off the boil a bit. And starts revising his early poems to make them worse.
Just spotted this type: it's "a curate from Kew", in case that isn't obvious.
Tee hee! You made typo into a typo! Meta-mistakes...my favourite!
Really trustworthy blog. sesli Please keep updating with great posts like this one. sesli sohbet I have booked marked your site and am about to email it
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