Before the We.R.7 Fell
Of We.R.7 I’m the bard
Who sings their songs and tells their tales
The deeds they did, the things they dared –
The perilous course they set their sails
There are the themes my muses tell
Before the “We Are Seven” fell.
I’d sing of a fight before a gale
Of winter’s worst and summer’s heat
Round big events I’d weave my tale
And leave their memory to the rest:
Of things we dreamed and did I’d tell
Before the “We Are Seven” fell.
These are the days beyond recall
But who’d recall them if they could?
They have not passed beyond the Wall
Until they’ve left their mark for good
The good that’s done no-one could tell
Until the “We Are Seven” fell.
When out of touch with pleasant things
And out of mood with human kind
Maybe to scan this book that sings
Of days that they have left behind
Will take them back, as by a spell
For what they did, to what befell
Before the “We Are Seven” fell. August 1930
They Never, Never, Swear
Oh, ‘We are Seven’, one and all
List to the warbling virginal
And heed ye all the holy call
To mass, or else to prayer:
I can vouch that this is true –
I’ve just heard someone speak of you
Who says you’re good, and pious too,
And never never swear!
Ye gods! The noted ‘Seven are We’
A sainted heavenly company!
It’s never before occurred to me –
(And often I’ve been there)
To think a ‘We.R.Seven’ chap
Could meet with any big mishap
Or a tumble into irate trap
And never never swear!
Just think of Joe and Wally Kay –
A couple who will have their say
If trouble meets them by the way
A most abandoned pair!
Imagine Joe in robes of white
Round Wally’s head a haloed light –
They couldn’t make a puncture right
And never never swear!
And look at Tom in parson’s black
A starch-stiff collar, front to back
Why, he’d raise a breezy track
If he’d a Daniel dare!
Then think of Fred on camping bent,
When back from morning stroll he went
D’you think if he found a cow in his tent
He’d never never swear!
Though rarely heard is language hot
Plaster saints we are certainly not –
For goody-goods we’ve no use got –
That kind we cannot bear:
We know the words from ‘a’ to ‘z’
Though mostly they are left unsaid
But without truth was he who said
They never never swear! March 1928