Tuesday, March 30, 2004

Innocent England

Oh what a pity, Oh! Don't you agree
that figs aren't found in the land of the free.

Fig trees don't grow in my native land;
there's never a fig-leaf near at hand
when you want one; so I did without;
and that is all the row's about.
Virginal, pure policemen came
and hid their faces for very shame,

While they carried the shameless things away
to gaol, to be hid from the light of the day.

By D.H.Lawrence (of the infamous "Lady Chatterley's Lover")

The reason why I'm posting this poem is because I loved the satirical attack on the prudishness of the British society in the 1920s - easily applicable to our society even today, eh? Incidentally this poem was written when the Police siezed 13 of Lawrence's paintings because they were deemed too scandalous, depicting as they did, scenes of human nudity...

Here are two of those paintings :



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