From Morris Bishop’s Paramount Poems.

One of Our Menaces

Ho hum, ho hum,
 I’ve a happy life,
I’ve a little sonny,
 A nice little wife;
I’ve a little money
 From a nice little store;
Ho hum, ho hum,
 I wish there was a war.

Life is very pleasant
 And always just the same;
I can call the mayor
 By his first name;
As a golf-player
 I’ve a low score;
Ho hum, ho hum,
 I wish there was a war.

My wife gives a party,
 It’s really very nice,
We have a little salad,
 Coffee and an ice;
I sing a funny ballad,
 The folks yell for more —
Ho hum, ho hum,
 I wish there was a war.

I’d like to loot cathedrals
 And hang men to trees,
I’d like to have a try at
 A few atrocities;
I’d like world-wide riot,
 I don’t care what it’s for —
Ho hum, ho hum,
 Let’s have a war!

The Wise Men

“Be Thrifty,” say the sages,
 “And put away your rocks,
For thus one’s green old age is
 Secure from wrecks and shocks;
Do not, of course, be sordid,
 But build against mischance;
Thrift always is rewarded!”
 (Except in Germany, Austria, Hungary, Czecho-Slovakia, Russia and France.)
“Be Loyal,” say the wise men,
 “To what we say you should;
The time may come that tries men,
 But all is to the good;
Though War is quite a burden,
 Prosperity and peace
Are loyal peoples’ guerdon!”
 (Except in Italy, Belgium, Poland, Jugo-Slavia, Turkey and Greece.)

I may not be so clever,
 But when the Wise Men crow:
“Always, forever, never,
 This thing or that is so;
The Truth is what I utter,
 World-wide, unchanging, whole!”
Well, I’m afraid I mutter:
 “Except in Africa, Asia, America, Europe, Australia, and the North Pole!”

The Exile’s Christmas

Today the sky is gray with snow
Over a town I used to know,
And memories on the snow drift down
Over an unforgotten town.

Ah, heaven, might I see once more
The dear paternal grocery store!
I hear, in wistful make-believe,
The merry din of Christmas Eve;
Again resound the shouts and sallies
Of voices tuned to windy valleys;
A sleigh stops in the village street,
And, stamping on his frozen feet,
Red Sim comes in, shakes snow from collar,
And tells the news from Pony Hollow.
Then silence, as we turn our chaws
In the slow orbit of the jaws.

Alas! I am condemned to dwell
High in an arrogant hotel;
I sit in my palatial suite
And hunger once again to eat
Beans and brown bread, black and hard,
Buckwheat pancakes fried in lard,
And dour plum puddings, citron-crested,
Indigestible, undigested.
Why can I not arise and flee
From all this sickly luxury?

Why can I not go home again?
It’s only seven hours by train.
Can I not bridge that little span?
To be quite frank, of course I can.
Instead, I join the band that sits
In the bright caverns of the Ritz
Gazing upon the Christmas folly
With sick and wayward melancholy;
We go to dine, lugubrious;
The dining-room is full of us;
In the rose-glimmering catacomb
We yearn for the rude walls of home.
“Go home, for heaven’s sake!” say you.
We never did, we never do.
The burdened memories crowd and troop.
A tear drops in the turtle soup.