An Appeal to Women
O ye women! WIMMIN! WEEMIN!!
See our tears repentant streamin'!
See the pearly drops a-gleamin',
Streamin' from our rheumy eye!
Mark our weskits palpitatin'.
Pray ye, be accommodation'.
Spare a thought commiseratin',
Say the Tory shall not die!
Spare him, who has been your master,
From political disaster.
Doom approaches fast and faster.
Save him - and the Marriage Tie!
Long ago, when, in the gloaming,
Hungry mastodons went roaming
With a view to seeking out what they might scoff.
There was little chance of spooning
In the park; and honey-mooning,
As a fashion, was most obviously 'off.'
For a honeymoon's a failure, and the gladness of it's gone
If you spend the latter end of it inside a mastodon.
So the troglodyte, new-married,
Cut his honeymoon, and tarried
In his cavern with his little bit of frock;
And instead of hugs and kisses,
He caressed his lawful missus
With a bit of cold, hard tertiary rock.
For the 'proper sphere' for women in that neolithic race
Was amongst the goods and chattels, and she had to keep her place.
But, as troglodytes expanded,
Rose a section that demanded
More consideration for the women-folk;
And the good old Tory faction
Met, and moved to 'take some action'
To oppose this foolish Socialistic joke.
But they had a way of dealing with such people in those days;
And, therefore, rocks gave way to clubs and other gentler ways.
Hark, O, woman! WOMMAN! WOOMAN!!
You would not be so inhuman
As to seal the Tory's doom an'
Join the Socialist hordes?
O, ye women of the classes!
Rise ye in your cultured masses!
Haste, before the Tory passes.
Be ye saviours of your lords.
Lo, have we not fought your battles!
(Hark! The foeman's armor rattles!)
Would ye be his toys and chattels?
Save us from Progression's swords!
Passing down the ancient ages,
Skipping many pregnant pages,
We arrive at that old magnate of the mines
Solomon, in all his glory
Rich monopolist and Tory,
Who possessed some wives and countless concubines.
And I shall not pause to dwell upon the Queen of Sheba's visit;
For such gossip isn't tolerated 'midst the 'naicest,' is it?
After that wise king was pensioned,
Someone (who and when not mentioned)
Said that men should have no more than one wife each.
Then the good old crusted Tory
Rose, with language loud and gory,
And delivered a prolonged impassioned speech.
He called this new proposal 'Socialist froth and foam
That attacked the marriage contract and the sanctity of home.'
Ay, he raved with indignation,
Formed an ancient Federation
Of Defence, and backed it up with piles of cash.
But the rabid 'One-wife' section
Fought and carried the election,
And their legislation ill-advised and rash.
Old Time has sprinted somewhat since that scheme was first begun,
And now the Tory (I'm informed) is satisfied with one.
O, ye women! WIMMIN! WEEMIN!!
Don't ye hear the Tory screamin'?
All along he's been esteemin'
Womankind, since ages dim.
He has pampered you and prized you;
E'er adored and idolised you,
And, moreover, recognised you
As his equal. Fly to him!
Has he not passed legislation
Granting you emancipation?
If you'd save your reputation
Haste to grant his ev'ry whim!
Once again, with hasty fingers,
Let us turn the page. Who lingers
There will find that ancient history repeats.
O'er and o'er the same old story,
Telling how the dear old Tory
Abdicates (perhaps) when womankind entreats.
Well, he did admit her equal to his dog at any rate.
So we'll pass - with your permission - to affairs of recent date.
Ah! did not the tender Tory
Listen to her tearful story
When she pleaded for a vote a while ago?
Did he not cry out in anguish
To behold his sister languish
For the franchise that the men enjoyed! Oh no.
'Tis recorded - mayhap wrongly - that he fought her tooth and nail.
And he sneered at her pretensions, but his sneers did not prevail.
Does the Tory change? I doubt it.
Watch him, how he goes about it,
Like his prototype the troglodyte B.C.,
When her mood he wants to soften,
See him smite her hard and often
With large, heavy chunks of deadly orat'ry.
But the outlook of she-troglodytes has much improved to-day;
For, although they may not now it, they're his last and only stay.
Hark ye, women! Women voters!
Social queens and League promoters!
Are ye ever to be doters
On the male-bird of your type!
Since Tory Adam bit the pippin
He has blamed you for his slippin'
And his sinnin'. Here's a rippin'
Chance to pay back ev'ry stripe.
Nay, it were a shame to lose it.
You have got the franchise - use it!
HE said that you would abuse it.
Now! TMUMBS DOWN! The time is ripe!
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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The Batchelors Song
Like a Dog with a bottle, fast ti'd to his tail,
Like Vermin in a trap, or a Thief in a Jail,
Or like a Tory in a Bog,
Or an Ape with a Clog:
Such is the man, who when he might go free,
Does his liberty loose,
For a Matrimony noose,
And sels himself into Captivity;
The Dog he do's howl, when his bottle do's jog,
The Vermin, the Theif, and the Tory in vain
Of the trap, of the Jail, of the Quagmire complain.
But welfare poor Pug! for he playes with his Clog;
And tho' he would be rid on't rather than his life,
Yet he lugg's it, and he hug's it, as a man does his wife.
poem by Thomas Flatman
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The Holy Constitution
Read ye here the song as sung
By a chief named, briefly, Ung.
In the days when arguments were manly axes:
'O my people, this my Law
Is without defect or flaw,
And it governs ways and means and rates and taxes.
To amend it were unwise;
And if any tribesman tries,
He will meet with swift unerring retribution.
'Tis omnipotent, infallible, as all may recognise;
In short, it is out Noble Constitution.'
When this Neolithic man
Gave the world his early plan
Of tribal laws to bind his nascent nation,
He opined, with fine conceit,
That his System was complete,
And the acme of all human legislation.
'For all time this Law shall stand!'
He decreed with manner grand
And a splendid disregard for evolution;
And the Tory crowd that followed, bore this tenet in its hand:
'You must never touch the Sacred Constitution.'
So the Party then in power,
To improve the shining hour,
Contracted quite a pleasing little habit:
Safely guarded in their 'right,'
If they fancied aught in sight,
Being 'constitutionally safe,' they'd grab it.
And they told the rank and file,
With a patronising smile,
When the People talked of 'wrongs' and 'persecution,'
'It is very, very sad, and, no doubt, your case is bad;
But we cannot tamper with the Constitution.'
But meat-winners of the day
(Rabid Socialists were they)
By slow degrees arrived at this conclusion:
That the hide-bound Tory joss
Totalled mainly bluff and dross,
And its 'sacredness' was wholly an illusion.
Then with yells and growlings vile,
In their quaint primeval style
They planned a prehistoric revolution;
And with bits of tertiary rock they wrecked the Torries' smile
And, incidentally, the Constitution.
All this happened, as you know,
Quite a long, long time ago;
And the world has since known Greece and Rome and Sparta,
Medes and Persians and such fools
Who were bound by cast-iron rules
Which reminds us of Old England's Magna Charta.
There's no doubt when England pressed
Hard to have her wrongs redressed,
And 'persuaded' John to sign the resolution,
That hard-shell old Tory King thought it quite a shocking thing
To meddle with the Holy constitution.
So on, ever since King John,
As the world moves surely on,
And the People cry for reformation drastic,
You can hear right down the line
E'er the same old Tory whine
Protesting, 'It is most iconoclastic!'
'Tis the same old Tory way,
Same old 'everlasting nay.'
'Tis the same reactionary elocution.
But, who stood for 'Progress' yesterday is 'Retrograde' today;
And we've got to meddle with the Constitution.
While the Fatman waxes fat,
He's content to stop at that;
He will bless the Constitution and defend it;
But whene'er it needs repair.
'Tis the man who works his share
That uprises, patriotic, to amend it.
Oh, it's not the slightest use
When your 'right' becomes 'abuse'.
'Tis the law of legislative evolution
That every Great Reform is won, 'spite arguments abuse
By altering the blessed Constitution.
Gentle Tory, prithee hark
Back to Ung of ages dark,
And defend his blessed code with sandstone axes.
Mayhap in that murky bourne
You'll escape a fate forlorn,
Full of New Protection and Progressive Taxes.
And you won't be sorely missed,
If you fall beneath some fist,
For young Progress shouts for men of execution.
And, as regards reform and such, WE'LL DO JUST AS WE LIST,
For it's Ours, this High and Holy Constitution.
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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It Was Never Contemplated
When old ADAM bit the apple,
And thereafter had to grapple
With hard toil to earn his daily bread by sweat,
There's no doubt that he protested
That his 'rights' had been molested,
And he's probably protesting strongly yet:
'When this garden was created
It was never contemplated
It was never in the schedule or the plan
'Twasn't even dimly hinted
That my living would be stinted,
Or that Work would ever be the lot of man.'
But in spite of protestation
ADAM, with his lone relation,
Was evicted in an arbitrary way,
Even though that resolution
Wasn't in the Constitution,
And his children have been grafting to this day.
But poor ADAM'S old contention
Has become a stock convention
'Mid the ADAMS of the nations ever since,
'Mid the shufflers and the shirkers,
Crusted Tory anti-workers,
They whom nought but 'precedent' can e'er convince.
They're the ADAMS of the race; they're the men that clog the pace,
With their backs upon the vanguard and their eyes upon the rear;
Praising loud their point of view, and regarding owt that's new
With a rabid Tory hatred and a vague old-fashioned fear.
They're the men of yester-year loitering all needless here,
And meandering around and 'round in aimless, endless rings.
Ever ready to resent acts without a precedent,
Such as were not contemplated in the ancient scheme of things.
'O, it was not contemplated!'
'Tis the cry of the belated,
The complaint of all the Old Worlds waterlogged;
Tis the trade-mark of the Tory;
'Tis the declaration hoary;
'Tis the protest of the busted and the bogged.
Mark, whenever it is uttered
By the lips of ancients muttered,
There is wisdom lacking here, at any rate
For, when Tories were created
It was never contemplated
That they ever would attempt to contemplate.
There are many things decided,
Quite by precedent unguided.
It was never contemplated, by the way.
When the scheme of things was shaping,
And mankind emerged from aping,
That he'd ever learn to eat three times a day;
Yet, all precedent unheeding,
Even Tories time their feeding,
And are known to be quite regular at meals;
Though in neolithic ages
'Twas laid down by ancient sages
That a man shall eat when so inclined he feels.
He's the dead weight at the back; he's the log upon the track;
He's the man who shouts the warning when the danger's past and gone;
He's the prophet of the old by defunct traditions hold;
He's the chap who sits and twaddles while the crowd goes marching on.
Of the things uncontemplated in the councils of the dead;
But the nation marches by heedless of his bitter cry
Marches on and contemplates the vital things away ahead.
In the shaping of a nation
Can we crowd all contemplation
Can we plan it in a hurried week or so?
Cease your ancient whiskered story
And observe, O gentle Tory,
We are contemplating matters as we go.
E'en to-day we're contemplating
Matters princip'ly relating
To the shaping of to-morrow's onward way;
And to-morrow ev'ry grafter
Will be forming plans for after;
But we are not harking back to yesterday.
For the future days arranging;
Seeking, planning, ever changing;
Weeding out the old mistakes of yester-year;
Planting now the seed of new things
March the men who dare and do things,
Opening up the unblazed road without a fear.
And, O mark you, gentle Tory,
We shall judge your measures hoary
By the use in this day's scheme they represent;
We shall use them if we want them;
If we don't we shall supplant them,
For we do not care a damn for precedent.
He's discretion at its worst; he a harbinger reversed;
He's the obstinate old party who abhors the new and strange.
He's the man whose ancient eyes ever fail to recognise
That the Law of Man was ever Change, and ever will be Change.
He's a scoffer at the Law; he's a blemish and a flaw;
And he whines as did old ADAM when he lost the realms of bliss.
When they shored him in the cold in the parlous days of old:
'THIS WAS NEVER CONTEMPLATED! YOU'VE NO PRECEDENT FOR THIS!'
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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The March
In early, prehistoric days, before the reign of Man,
When neolithic Nature fashioned things upon a plan
That was large as it was rugged, and, in truth, a trifle crude,
There arose a dusky human who was positively rude.
Now, this was in the days when lived the monster kangaroo;
When the mammoth bunyip gambolled in the hills of Beetaloo;
They'd owned the land for centuries, and reckoned it their own;
For might was right, and such a thing as 'law' was quite unknown.
But this dusky old reformer in the ages long ago,
One morning in the Eocene discovered how to 'throw';
He studied well and practised hard until he learned the art;
Then, having planned his Great Campaign, went forth to make a start.
'See here,' he said - and hurled a piece of tertiary rock,
That struck a Tory bunyip with a most unpleasant shock -
'See here, my name is Progress, and your methods are too slow,
This land that you are fooling with must be cut up. Now go!'
They gazed at him in wonder, then they slowly backed away;
For 'throwing' things was novel in that neolithic day;
'Twas the prehistoric 'argument,' the first faint gleam of 'art.'
Yet those mammoths seemed to take it in exceedingly bad part.
Then a hoary, agéd bunyip rose, and spluttered loud and long;
He said the balck man's arguments were very, very wrong;
'You forget,' he said, indignantly 'the land is ours by right,
And to seek to wrest it from us would be - well, most impolite.'
But the savage shook his woolly head and smiled a savage smile,
And went on hurling prehistoric missiles all the while,
Till the bunyip and the others couldn't bear the argument,
And they said, 'You are a Socialist.' But, all the same - they went.
Some centuries - or, maybe, it was aeons - later on,
When the bunyip and the mammoth kangaroo had passed and gone;
While the black man slowly profited by what his fathers saw,
While he learned to fashion weapons and establish tribal law.
There came a band of pale-faced men in ships, from oversea,
Who viewed the land, then shook their heads and sadly said, 'Dear me!'
Then they landed with some rum and Bibles and a gun or two,
And started out to 'civilize,' as whites are apt to do.
They interviewed the black man and remarked, 'It's very sad,
But the use you make of this great land is postively bad;
Why, you haven't got a sheep or cow about the blessed place!
Considering the price of wool, it's simply a disgrace!'
Then they started with the Bibles and the rum - also the guns;
And some began to look for gold and others 'took up runs,'
For, they said, 'This land must be cut up it's simply useless so:
Our name is Progress, and you're out of date, so you must go!'
But the black was most indignant, and he said it was a shame;
For he'd been full and satisfied before the white man came,
And he used that awful word, 'Bowowgong,' in his argument,
Which is native for 'A blanky Socialist.' And yet - he went.
It's the same old 'march unceasing.' We are getting down the list,
And yesterday's 'Reformer' is tomorrow's 'Monopolist,'
For Hist'ry will repeat itself in this annoying way:
Who stood for 'Progress' yesterday is 'Retrograde' to-day.
To-day we view the land, as did those men for oversea,
And, like them, slowly shake our heads and sadly say, 'Dear me!
This land will have to be cut up; your methods are too slow;
Our name is Progress; you are out of date, so you must go.'
They mutter Tory Platitudes, and call the land their land;
For, like the bunyip and the black, they do not understand.
Like bunyip and like black they hark to days of long ago;
And, like them, murmur 'Socialist!' But, all the same - they'll go.
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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There's something fundamentally wrong with a system where there's been 17 years of a Tory Government and the people of Scotland have voted Socialist for 17 years. That hardly seems democratic.
quote by Sean Connery
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Ballad of G. R. Dibbs
This is the story of G.R.D.,
Who went on a mission across the sea
To borrow some money for you and me.
This G. R. Dibbs was a stalwart man
Who was built on a most extensive plan,
And a regular staunch Republican.
But he fell in the hands of the Tory crew
Who said, "It's a shame that a man like you
Should teach Australia this nasty view.
"From her mother's side she should ne'er be gone,
And she ought to be glad to be smiled upon,
And proud to be known as our hanger-on."
And G. R. Dibbs, he went off his peg
At the swells who came for his smiles to beg
And the Prince of Wales -- who was pulling his leg
And he told them all when the wine had flown,
"The Australian has got no land of his own,
His home is England, and there alone."
So he strutted along with the titled band
And he sold the pride of his native land
For a bow and a smile and a shake of the hand.
And the Tory drummers they sit and call:
"Send over your leaders great and small;
For the price is low, and we'll buy them all
"With a tinsel title, a tawdry star
Of a lower grade than our titles are,
And a puff at a prince's big cigar."
And the Tories laugh till they crack their ribs
When they think how they purchased G. R. Dibbs.
poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
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No one was either Tory or Whig; it was either dependence or independence.
quote by Caesar Rodney
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I can recognize the calls of practically every bird in North America. There are some in Africa I don't know, though.
quote by Roger Tory Peterson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Disloyalty is the secret weapon of the Tory Party.
quote by Julian Critchley
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Not all is doom and gloom. We are beginning to understand the natural world and are gaining a reverence for life - all life.
quote by Roger Tory Peterson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Birds have wings; they're free; they can fly where they want when they want. They have the kind of mobility many people envy.
quote by Roger Tory Peterson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I am a Tory Anarchist. I should like every one to go about doing just as he pleased — short of altering any of the things to which I have grown accustomed.
quote by Max Beerbohm
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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I consider myself to have been the bridge between the shotgun and the binoculars in bird watching. Before I came along, the primary way to observe birds was to shoot them and stuff them.
quote by Roger Tory Peterson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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What Grandfather Said
(_An epistle from a narrow-minded old gentleman to a young artist of
superior intellect and intense realism._)
Your thoughts are for the poor and weak?
Ah, no, the picturesque's your passion!
Your tongue is always in your cheek
At poverty that's not in fashion.
You like a ploughman's rugged face,
Or painted eyes in Piccadilly;
But bowler hats are commonplace,
And thread-bare tradesmen simply silly.
The clerk that sings 'God save the King,'
And still believes his Tory paper,--
You hate the anæmic fool? I thought
You loved the weak! Was that all vapour?
Ah, when you sneer, dear democrat,
At such a shiny-trousered Tory
Because he doffs his poor old hat
To what he thinks his country's glory,
To you it's just a coloured rag.
You hate the 'patriots' that bawl so.
Well, my Ulysses, there's a flag
That lifts men in Republics also.
No doubt his thoughts are cruder far;
And, where those linen folds are shaking,
Perhaps he sees a kind of star
Because his eyes are tired and aching.
Banal enough! Banal as truth!
But I'm not thinking of his banners.
I'm thinking of his pinched white youth
And your disgusting 'new art' manners.
His meek submission stirs your hate?
Better, my lad, if you're so fervent,
Turn your cold steel against the State
Instead of sneering at the servant.
He does his job. He draws his pay.
You sneer, and dine with those that pay him;
And then you write a snobbish play
For democrats, in which you play him.
Ah, yes, you like simplicity
That sucks its cheeks to make the dimple.
But this domestic bourgeoisie
You hate,--because it's all too simple.
You hate the hearth, the wife, the child,
You hate the heavens that bend above them.
Your simple folk must all run wild
Like jungle-beasts before you love them.
You own a house in Cheyne Walk,
(You say it costs three thousand fully)
Where subtle snobs can talk and talk
And play the intellectual bully.
Yes. I say 'snobs.' Are names alone
Free from all change? Your word 'Victorian'
Could bite and sting in ninety one
But now--it's deader than the saurian.
You think I live in yesterday,
Because I think your way the wrong one;
But I have hewed and ploughed my way,
And--unlike yours--it's been a long one.
I let Victoria toll her bell,
And went with Strindberg for a ride, sir.
I've fought through your own day as well,
And come out on the other side, sir,--
The further side, the morning side,
I read free verse (the Psalms) on Sunday.
But I've decided (you'll decide)
That there is room for song on Monday.
I've seen the new snob on his way,
The intellectual snob I mean, sir,
The artist snob, in book and play,
Kicking his mother round the scene, sir.
I've heard the Tories talk like fools;
And the rich fool that apes the Tory.
I've seen the shopmen break your rules
And die like Christ, in Christ's own glory.
But, as for you, that liberal sneer
Reminds me of the poor old Kaiser.
He was a 'socialist,' my dear.
Well, I'm your grandson. You'll grow wiser.
poem by Alfred Noyes
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A Major Reshuffle
When Major polls his fellow Brits
he'll hope to dine out at the Ritz, -
when votes are in, without a doubt,
his - tory will have found him out!
23 July 1991
poem by Jonathan Robin
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No attempt at ethical or social seduction can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin.
quote by Aneurin Bevan
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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No amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin.
quote by Aneurin Bevan
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Sonnet Fashioned Old
'Our love will never last a week, I fear-'
That's to say t'will last a hundred year.
As long as mortal flesh will cling to bone
Some part of my affection you will own;
'My character's a very different sort-'
Hey, the Gemini cannot purport
To shine in parity to equal we-
Provable by spectrography;
Our fortunes are of greatly different share-'
That's to say we both, in kind, are poor,
For one man's simple is another's sumptious fare;
'I'm a royalist and you're a Tory-'
That's to say that love will end the story
Of rich and poor and infamy and glory.
poem by Morgan Michaels
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Credit Crunch
Credit crunch
no lunch
not flash
no cash
money tight
candle light
bus stop
pound shop
heating down
wearing frown
no heat
cold feet
getting old
very cold
Labour Tory
same story
crime waves
dark days
knife gun
no fun
feral yobs
no jobs
mass crime
dismal time
summer near
no cheer
house let
kids upset
wife left
feel bereft.
poem by Kevin Halls
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