The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #2245 Message #2815033
Posted By: GUEST,J. F. Moore
18-Jan-10 - 01:09 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Christmas Day in the Workhouse
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Christmas Day in the Workhouse
Here is the version, accurate and verbatim, from "The Gathering". As was said, it was attributed to Kipling. It does, after all, have a Kipling flair and feel, and I'm thinking that it may have been Kipling's parody of the original. As a Kipling parody of someone else's work, it would not, therefore, have been included in any volumes of his own.
Christmas in the Workhouse
It was Christmas in the workhouse The best day of the year And the paupers all was 'appy For their guts was full of beer
The master of the workhouse Strolled through them dismal 'alls And he wished them all merry Christmas And the paupers answered (balls)!
Now the master, he grew angry And he swore by all the gods "They'll have no Christmas puddin' The lousy lot of (cods)!" (the son substituted 'sods')
Up sprang a war-scarred veteran Who stormed the Kyber Pass, (probably should be 'who had stormed' or 'who'd stormed') "We don't want your Christmas puddin', and (you can shove it up your ass)!"