Book: Bar-Room Ballads

• A Sourdough Story

  Hark to the Sourdough story, told at sixty below,
  When the pipes are lit and we smoke and spit

  40 lines, 1 comment
• Accordion

  Some carol of the banjo, to its measure keeping time;
  Of viol or of lute some make a song.

  51 lines
• Allouette

  Singing larks I saw for sale -
  (Ah! the pain of it)

  32 lines
• The Ballad Of Lenin's Tomb

  This is the yarn he told me
         As we sat in Casey's Bar,

  108 lines
• Atoll

  The woes of men beyond my ken
  Mean nothing more to me.

  32 lines
• Privacy

  Oh you who are shy of the popular eye,
  (Though most of us seek to survive it)

  32 lines
• Bastard

  The very skies were black with shame,
  As near my moment drew;

  43 lines
• Trees Against The Sky

  Pines against the sky,
  Pluming the purple hill;

  49 lines
• Beachcomber

  When I have come with happy heart to sixty years and ten,
  I'll buy a boat and sail away upon a summer sea;

  32 lines
• Song Of The Sardine

  A fat man sat in an orchestra stall and his cheeks were wet with tears,
  As he gazed at the primadonna tall, whom he hadn't seen in years.

  21 lines
• Bessie's Boil

  Says I to my Missis: "Ba goom, lass! you've something I see, on your mind."
  Says she: "You are right, Sam, I've something. It 'appens it's on me be'ind.

  48 lines, 1 comment
• The Ballad Of Touch-The-Button Nell

  Beyond the Rocking Bridge it lies, the burg of evil fame,
  The huts where hive and swarm and thrive the sisterhood of shame.

  104 lines
• Bookshelf

  I like to think that when I fall,
  A rain-drop in Death's shoreless sea,

  36 lines
• Maternity

  There once was a Square, such a square little Square,
  And he loved a trim Triangle;

  24 lines
• Dolls

  She said: "I am too old to play
  With dolls," and put them all away,

  54 lines
• Sensibility

  I
  Once, when a boy, I killed a cat.

  63 lines
• Don't Cheer

  Don't cheer, damn you! Don't cheer!
  Silence! Your bitterest tear

  35 lines
• The Ballad Of Hank The Finn

  Now Fireman Flynn met Hank the Finn where lights of Lust-land glow;
  "Let's leave," says he, "the lousy sea, and give the land a show.

  82 lines
• Each Day A Life

  I count each day a little life,
         With birth and death complete;

  19 lines
• The Ballad Of The Ice-Worm Cocktail

  To Dawson Town came Percy Brown from London on the Thames.
  A pane of glass was in his eye, and stockings on his stems.

  140 lines
• Enemy Conscript

  What are we fighting for,
  We fellows who go to war?

  60 lines
• The Bread-Knife Ballad

  A little child was sitting Up on her mother's knee
  And down down her cheeks the bitter tears did flow.

  13 lines
• Five-Per-Cent

  Because I have ten thousand pounds I sit upon my stern,
  And leave my living tranquilly for other folks to earn.

  36 lines
• Warsaw

  I was in Warsaw when the first bomb fell;
  I was in Warsaw when the Terror came -

  15 lines
• Fore-Warning

  I'd rather be the Jester than the Minstrel of the King;
  I'd rather jangle cap and bells than twang the stately harp;

  7 lines
• Moon-Lover

  I
  The Moon is like a ping-pong ball;

  67 lines
• Gipsy

  The poppies that in Spring I sow,
  In rings of radiance gleam and glow,

  36 lines
• Resignation

  I'd hate to be centipede (of legs I've only two),
  For if new trousers I should need (as oftentimes I do),

  16 lines
• Grandad

  Heaven's mighty sweet, I guess;
  Ain't no rush to git there:

  42 lines
• Shiela

  When I played my penny whistle on the braes above Lochgyle
  The heather bloomed about us, and we heard the peewit call;

  18 lines
• Infidelity

  Three Triangles
  TRIANGLE ONE

  76 lines
• The Ballad Of Casey's Billy-Goat

  You've heard of "Casey at The Bat,"
  and "Casey's Tabble Dote";

  112 lines, 2 comments
• Jobson Of The Star

  Within a pub that's off the Strand and handy to the bar,
  With pipe in mouth and mug in hand sat Jobson of the Star.

  73 lines
• The Ballad Of How Macpherson Held The Floor

  Said President MacConnachie to Treasurer MacCall:
  "We ought to have a piper for our next Saint Andrew's Ball.

  146 lines
• Laughter

  I Laugh at Life: its antics make for me a giddy games,
  Where only foolish fellows take themselves with solemn aim.

  24 lines
• The Ballad Of Salvation Bill

  'Twas in the bleary middle of the hard-boiled Arctic night,
  I was lonesome as a loon, so if you can,

  96 lines
• Laziness

  Let laureates sing with rapturous swing
  Of the wonder and glory of work;

  24 lines
• The Ballad Of The Leather Medal

  Only a Leather Medal, hanging there on the wall,
  Dingy and frayed and faded, dusty and worn and old;

  93 lines
• Lip-Stick Liz

  Oh Lip-Stick Liz was in the biz, That's the oldest known in history;
  She had a lot of fancy rags, Of her form she made no myst'ry.

  20 lines
• The Boola-Boola Maid

  In the wilds of Madagascar, Dwelt a Boola-boola maid;
  For her hand young men would ask her, But she always was afraid.

  25 lines
• Little Puddleton

  I
  Let others sing of Empire and of pomp beyond the sea,

  52 lines
• The Smoking Frog

  Three men I saw beside a bar,
  Regarding o'er their bottle,

  48 lines
• Madam La Maquise

  Said Hongray de la Glaciere unto his proud Papa:
  "I want to take a wife mon Père," The Marquis laughed: "Ha! Ha!

  80 lines
• Virginity

  My mother she had children five and four are dead and gone;
  While I, least worthy to survive, persist in living on.

  30 lines
• Maids In May

  Three maids there were in meadow bright,
  The eldest less then seven;

  35 lines
• You Can't Can Love

  I don't know how the fishes feel, but I can't help thinking it odd,
  That a gay young flapper of a female eel should fall in love with a cod.

  28 lines

• By me, right now

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