Harry Graham (36)

Ein Gedicht passend zur Ferienzeit aus »Rhymes For Riper Years« (1917):

Harry Graham: Slush

Describing the scene at a railway station when schoolboys return home for the holidays, the Daily Mail says: »One small boy there was who had no mother to meet him. He stood, a lonely figure, till a big chauffeur came up and touched his cap... He would rather have had a mother than a motor to meet him. You could read that in his pathetic little eyes.«

Dowered with the wealth of Ophir,
   Reared on costly caviare,
Driven by a foreign chauffeur
   In a spacious Siddeley car,
Luckless little Thompson minor
   Would have paid a handsome cheque
For a mother to entwine her
   Loving arms about his neck!
Though the motor's speed is greater,
Thompson much prefers »the mater!«

Long ago, with eyes all shiny,
   She had asked, in tender tone:
»Would you like a little tiny
   Baby-sister of your own?«
Now it stung him like a blister
   That he'd answered: »I should like,
Not a tiny baby-sister,
   But a full-sized motor-bike!«
That was why no fair relation
Welcomed Thompson at the station!

Other fellows had a mother;
   Sisters met them at the train.
As he watched them kiss each other,
   Thompson's heart was racked with pain.
Not a single fond, devoted
   Female waited for him there,
And with bitterness he quoted:
   »Can a motor's tender care...?«
(This, you must admit, was crim'nal;
Boys should never quote the Hymnal.)

See, his friends, in cabs and taxis,
   Hold maternal fingers tight,
While poor Thompson minor waxes
   Sad and sadder at the sight!
For although, perhaps, he'd rather,
   At the hour of his return,
Have a motor than a father
   (Fathers can be harsh and stern!);
Can he hope his sobs to smother,
With a motor for a mother?