Poem From Burma

Brush your teeth up and down, brother,
Oh, brush them up and down!
All the folks in London Town
Brush their teeth right up and down.
Oh! How they shine!
Arent they bloody fine?
Night and morning, my brother,
Oh brush them up and down!

Eric Blair

Eric Arthur Blair, known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist and critic. He is best known for his allegorical novella 'Animal Farm' and the dystopian novel '1984'. Orwell's work is marked by lucid prose, awareness of social injustice, opposition to totalitarianism, and outspoken support of democratic socialism.

Eric Blair

The Pagan

Eric Blair, Simple Poetry

Awake! Young Men of England

Eric Blair, Simple Poetry

Kitchener

Eric Blair, Simple Poetry

English

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The Lesser Evil

Empty as death and slow as pain
The days went by on leaden feet;
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As I walked down the little street.

Without, the weary doves were calling,
The sun burned on the banks of mud;
Within, old maids were caterwauling
A dismal tale of thorns and blood.

I thought of all the church bells ringing
In towns that Christian folks were in;
I heard the godly maidens singing;
I turned into the house of sin.

The house of sin was dark & mean,
With dying flowers round the door;
They spat their betel juice between
The rotten bamboos of the floor.

Why did I come, the woman cried,
So seldom to her beds of ease?
When I was not, her spirit died,
And would I give her ten rupees.

The weeks went by, a...

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A Little Poem

A happy vicar I might have been
Two hundred years ago
To preach upon eternal doom
And watch my walnuts grow;

But born, alas, in an evil time,
I missed that pleasant haven,
For the hair has grown on my upper lip
And the clergy are all clean-shaven.

And later still the times were good,
We were so easy to please,
We rocked our troubled thoughts to sleep
On the bosoms of the trees.

All ignorant we dared to own
The joys we now dissemble;
The greenfinch on the apple bough
Could make my enemies tremble.

But girls bellies and apricots,
Roach in a shaded stream,
Horses, ducks in flight at dawn,
All these are a dream.

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Kitchener

No stone is set to mark his nations loss,
No stately tomb enshrines his noble breast;
Not een the tribute of a wooden cross
Can mark this heros rest.

He needs them not, his name untarnished stands,
Remindful of the mighty deeds he worked,
Footprints of one, upon times changeful sands,
Who neer his duty shirked.

Who follows in his steps no danger shuns,
Nor stoops to conquer by a shameful deed,
An honest and unselfish race he runs,
From fear and malice freed.

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A New John Bull

A tall, slight, English gentleman,
With an eyeglass to his eye;
He mostly says Good-Bai to you,
When he means to say Good-bye;
He shakes hands like a ladies man,
For all the world to see,
But they know, in Corners of the World.
No ladies man is he.
A tall, slight English gentleman,
Who hates to soil his hands;
He takes his mothers drawing-room
To the most outlandish lands;
And when, through Hells we dream not of,
His battery prevails,
He cleans the grime of gunpowder
And blue blood from his nails.

Hes what our blokes in Egypt call
A decent kinder cove.
And if the Pyramids should fall?
Hed merely say Bai Jove!
And if the stones should block his path
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Mandalay

By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea,
There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;
For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:
"Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!"
Come you back to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay:
Can't you 'ear their paddles chunkin' from Rangoon to Mandalay?
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin'-fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!

'Er petticoat was yaller an' 'er little cap was green,
An' 'er name was Supi-yaw-lat, jes' the same as Theebaw's Queen,
An' I seed her first a-smokin' of a whackin' white cheroot,
An' a-wastin' Christian kisses on an 'eathen idol's foot:
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Wot they called the...

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The Man From Waterloo

It was the Man from Waterloo,
When work in town was slack,
Who took the track as bushmen do,
And humped his swag out back.

He tramped for months without a bob,
For most the sheds were full,
Until at last he got a job
At picking up the wool.

He found the work was rather rough,
But swore to see it through,
For he was made of sterling stuff,
The Man from Waterloo.

The first remark was like a stab
That fell his ear upon,
Twas, Theres another something scab
The boss has taken on!

They couldnt let the towny be,
They sneered like anything;
Theyd mock him when hed sound the g
In words that end in ing.

There came a man from Ironbark,
And at the shed he shore;
He scoffed his victuals like a shark,

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