DESIRE TO DOMINATE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 79, 27 December 1940, Page 4

DESIRE TO DOMINATE

No one need look, in balked bewilderment or botheration, For what upsets the world. Desire for domination. Is causing all the strife. Ask any husband, wife Or ma-in-law, what most breaks happy homes, and you'll be told That it is not so much that hearts grow cold That someone (not the one asked, of course) desires to sway The whole "menage’-demands that one’s own way So much that no one else can bear The strains imposed. The wife who seeks to wear The trousers, or the husband who dictates What his "belov’d" shall wear, so irritates The other that endurance-point is passed. The trodden worm adder becomes at last. What of this? See these words of mine addressed To whomsoever has within his breast Desire to dominate. Hear me, worm though I be, with dragon fierceness state The truth that who so seeks to dominate His fellows meets a dreadful, doleful fate. Nebuchadnezzar, seen eating grass, Ben'to and Adolf in Bremner Pass, Bonaparte, far-apart, cooling his heels, Stalin in Moscow, the slipperiest of eels, How are these different? In only one way! Some of them had, some are having, their day — That briet hectic day, so soon ended, enjoyed By all who with dreams of world-conquest have toyed. This dread Domination, I care not who ’tis Desires it most now. To find out’s not my "biz". But, whoe’er it may be, He is doomed soon to see That his bubble must burst, or be pricked and go bang, So smashing him up that to find aught to hang High aloft, as a warning to others, will be Too much trouble to take. There’ll be nought left to see. Would-be world-dominators, take heed and beware! Go on with your antics, now, fools, if you dare! Don't scowl and look black at this threatening worm, Who has told you your fate! Though you wriggle ard squirm, You can never escape from the fearsome foul fate Of the fool who his fellows would dominate. You may hide or may stalk through the world looking grim But your cup’s filling up. Look! It’s nearing the brim! Aha! How I’ve startled you! Why jump and start? I knew all such tyrants are cowards at heart. II, SHIRTS , Shirts! Shirts! Shirts!) Why this monstrous plague of shirts? Nearly all the chaps who strut in them seem squibs or squirts. Green shirts! Black shirts! Tight shirts! Slack shirts! For pity’s sake grow tired of them, and take to skirts! Skirts don’t suit you? You are men? I shall have to look again. There has not come into view

Any manliness in youNot in any of your crew, Brown, grey, black, green, blue, red shirted Only manliness perverted, Twisted, mangled, introverted. Oh, these shirts, shirts, shirts! This appalling craze for shirts Lirked with tyranny and lust, linked with all that grieves and hurtsShirts all worn by beings who bow To the puppets who know how Men can be suborned and made Of a show of force afraid.

Shirts! Shirts! Shirts! Millions of machine-made shirts, Covering men being made machine-like. Oh, it controvertsThis machine-plan All that makes man Really manly. May its makers soon meet their deserts! Shirts! Shirts! Shirts! I’m made furious by these shirts! But I know the fate of foolish man who fondly flirts With desire for dominationDeath, destruction, and damnation; So my fury I restrain. Manliness will live again When has passed this monstrous regiment of shirts, shirts. shirts.

ANON

(Cambridge).