How'd You Like It?
Well, then! How'd you like to bear the name of Butler
As an honor badge eight centuries at least,
And then have the Prohibitionists inform you
That a butler is a sort of outlawed beast?
poem by Ellis Parker Butler
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My Defenses Are Down
FRANK BUTLER:
I've had my way with so many girls
An' was lots of fun.
My scheme was to know many girls
To keep me safe from one
I find it can be done.
My defenses are down
She's broken my resistance
And I don't know where I am
I went into the fight like a lion
But I came out like a lamb.
My defenses are down
She's got me where she wants me
And I can't escape no how
I could speak to my heart when it wakened
But my heart won't listen now.
Like a toothless, clawless tiger,
Like an organ-grinder's bear,
Like a knight without his armor,
Like Samson without his hair.
My defenses are down
I might as well surrender
For the battle can't be won.
But I must confess that I like it,
So there's nothing to be done.
Yes, I must confess that I like it
Being miserable's gonna be fun
MALE CHORUS:
His defenses are down
She's broken my resistance
And he's in an awful jam.
FRANK BUTLER:
I went into the fight like a lion
MALE CHORUS:
But you came out like a lamb.
FRANK BUTLER:
My defenses are down
MALE CHORUS:
She's got you where she wants you
And you can't escape no how
FRANK BUTLER:
I could speak to my heart when it wakened
MALE CHORUS:
But my heart won't listen now.
FRANK BUTLER:
Like a toothless, clawless tiger,
Like an organ-grinder's bear,
MALE CHORUS:
Like a knight without his armor,
FRANK BUTLER:
Like Samson without his hair.
My defenses are down
FRANK BUTLER and MALE CHORUS:
I might as well surrender
For the battle can't be won.
FRANK BUTLER:
But I must confess that I like it,
So there's nothing to be done.
FRANK BUTLER and MALE CHORUS:
Yes, I must confess that I like it
Being miserable's gonna be fun
song performed by by Irving Berlin
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Women have been kicking ass for centuries.
quote by Yancy Butler
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Finale
FRANK BUTLER:
The cowboys, the wrestlers, the tumblers, the clowns
The roustabouts that move the show at dawn
ANNIE OAKLEY:
The music, the spotlights, the people, the towns
Your baggage with the labels pasted on
FRANK BUTLER:
The sawdust and the horses and the smell
ANNIE OAKLEY:
The towel you've taken from the last hotel
ANNIE OAKLEY, FRANK BUTLER and CHORUS:
There's no business like show business
Like no business I know
Everything about it is appealing
Everything the traffic will allow
No where could you have that happy feeling
When you aren't stealing that extra bow
There's no people like show people
They smile when they are low
Even with a turkey that you know will fold
You may be stranded out in the cold
Still you wouldn't change it for a sack o' gold
Let's go on with the show
Let's go on with the show!
ANNIE OAKLEY and FRANK BUTLER:
They say that falling in love is wonderful
It's wonderful, so they say.
And with a moon up above it's wonderful
It's wonderful, so they tell me.
ANNIE OAKLEY:
I can't recall who said it
FRANK BUTLER:
I know I never read it
I only know that falling in love is grand
And to hold a girl in your arms
Is wonderful,
ANNIE OAKLEY:
Wonderful...
ANNIE OAKLEY and FRANK BUTLER:
In every way
So they say
song performed by by Irving Berlin
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Lady's First Song
I TURN round
Like a dumb beast in a show.
Neither know what I am
Nor where I go,
My language beaten
Into one name;
I am in love
And that is my shame.
What hurts the soul
My soul adores,
No better than a beast
Upon all fours.
poem by William Butler Yeats
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A definition is the enclosing a wilderness of idea within a wall of words.
Samuel Butler in The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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Please Mrs Butler
Please Mrs Butler
This boy Derek Drew
Keeps copying my work, Miss.
What shall I do?
Go and sit in the hall, dear.
Go and sit in the sink.
Take your books on the roof, my lamb.
Do whatever you think.
Please Mrs Butler
This boy Derek Drew
Keeps taking my rubber, Miss.
What shall I do?
Keep it in your hand, dear.
Hide it up your vest.
Swallow it if you like, love.
Do what you think best.
Please Mrs Butler
This boy Derek Drew
Keeps calling me rude names, Miss.
What shall I do?
Lock yourself in the cupboard, dear.
Run away to sea.
Do whatever you can, my flower.
But don't ask me!
poem by Allan Ahlberg
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Deer
The deer's a mighty useful beast
From Petersburg to Tennyson
For while he lives he lopes around
And when he's dead he's venison.
poem by Ellis Parker Butler
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An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard only one side of the case; God has written all the books.
Samuel Butler in The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Irish poets, learn your trade, sing whatever is well made, scorn the sort now growing up all out of shape from toe to top.
quote by William Butler Yeats
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The farmer (cavatina)
(after Guy Butler)
On the sandstone veranda I saw him
withered, old,
the master of thousands of acres of veldt,
it was quite cold
that early morning and through seasons of rain, drought
he stood quite bold;
a world of summers, winters he did love,
from an earth of grey shale he could not move.
[Reference: "Farmer" by Guy Butler.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Remember likewise there are persons who love fewer words, an inoffensive sort of people, and who deserve some regard, though of too still and composed tempers for you.
quote by Joseph Butler
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I would sort out all the arguments and see which belonged to fear and which to creativeness. Other things being equal, I would make the decision which had the larger number of creative reasons on its side.
quote by Katharine Butler Hathaway
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Both our senses and our passions are a supply to the imperfection of our nature; thus they show that we are such sort of creatures as to stand in need of those helps which higher orders of creatures do not.
quote by Joseph Butler
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Why Should Not Old Men Be Mad?
WHY should not old men be mad?
Some have known a likely lad
That had a sound fly-fisher's wrist
Turn to a drunken journalist;
A girl that knew all Dante once
Live to bear children to a dunce;
A Helen of social welfare dream,
Climb on a wagonette to scream.
Some think it a matter of course that chance
Should starve good men and bad advance,
That if their neighbours figured plain,
As though upon a lighted screen,
No single story would they find
Of an unbroken happy mind,
A finish worthy of the start.
Young men know nothing of this sort,
Observant old men know it well;
And when they know what old books tell
And that no better can be had,
Know why an old man should be mad.
poem by William Butler Yeats
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The Lady's Second Song
WHAT sort of man is coming
To lie between your feet?
What matter, we are but women.
Wash; make your body sweet;
I have cupboards of dried fragrance.
I can strew the sheet.
The Lord have mercy upon us.
He shall love my soul as though
Body were not at all,
He shall love your body
Untroubled by the soul,
Love cram love's two divisions
Yet keep his substance whole.
The Lord have mercy upon us.
Soul must learn a love that is
proper to my breast,
Limbs a Love in common
With every noble beast.
If soul may look and body touch,
Which is the more blest?
The Lord have mercy upon us.
poem by William Butler Yeats
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Whodunnit?
Providence? It's 'What the Butler Saw' -
and ever sees, and ever shall have seen:
the One who knows what's needed long before,
and sees that it's delivered at the scene;
prepares it for the feast of human life;
presents it in due style at this repast;
then, in the festive moment, stands aloof,
invisible to him who plays the host;
sees that new dishes come, and plates removed
- fleet opportunities that come and go;
unseen- unless His presence sought and proved;
unspeaking, silent - unless spoken to.
Whodunnit? why, the butler, since you ask,
named Providence: God's world, and Word, and task.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Owen Aherne And His Dancers
A STRANGE thing surely that my Heart, when love had come unsought
Upon the Norman upland or in that poplar shade,
Should find no burden but itself and yet should be worn out.
It could not bear that burden and therefore it went mad.
poem by William Butler Yeats
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The Town Marshal
The Prohibitionists made me Town Marshal
When the saloons were voted out,
Because when I was a drinking man,
Before I joined the church, I killed a Swede
At the saw-mill near Maple Grove.
And they wanted a terrible man,
Grim, righteous, strong, courageous,
And a hater of saloons and drinkers,
To keep law and order in the village.
And they presented me with a loaded cane
With which I struck Jack McGuire
Before he drew the gun with which he killed me.
The Prohibitionists spent their money in vain
To hang him, for in a dream
I appeared to one of the twelve jurymen
And told him the whole secret story.
Fourteen years were enough for killing me.
poem by Edgar Lee Masters
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A Last Confession
What lively lad most pleasured me
Of all that with me lay?
I answer that I gave my soul
And loved in misery,
But had great pleasure with a lad
That I loved bodily.
Flinging from his arms I laughed
To think his passion such
He fancied that I gave a soul
Did but our bodies touch,
And laughed upon his breast to think
Beast gave beast as much.
I gave what other women gave
That stepped out of their clothes.
But when this soul, its body off,
Naked to naked goes,
He it has found shall find therein
What none other knows,
And give his own and take his own
And rule in his own right;
And though it loved in misery
Close and cling so tight,
There's not a bird of day that dare
Extinguish that delight.
poem by William Butler Yeats
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He Thinks Of His Past Greatness When A Part Of The Constellations Of Heaven
I HAVE drunk ale from the Country of the Young
And weep because I know all things now:
I have been a hazel-tree, and they hung
The Pilot Star and the Crooked Plough
Among my leaves in times out of mind:
I became a rush that horses tread:
I became a man, a hater of the wind,
Knowing one, out of all things, alone, that his head
May not lie on the breast nor his lips on thc hair
Of the woman that he loves, until he dies.
O beast of the wilderness, bird of the air,
Must I endure your amorous cries?
poem by William Butler Yeats
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