WE NEVER MENTION AUNT CLARA
*1
She used to sing hymns in the old village choir
She taught at the Sunday-school class,
At playing the organ she never would tire
Those dear days are over, alas.
*2
In church at the organ she’d practice each day
While the minister pumped up and down.
His wife caught him pumping the organ one day
And that’s why aunt Clara left town.
*3
With presents he tempted and lured her to sin
Her innocent virtue to smirch,
But her honor was strong and she never gave in
Till he gave her the deed to the church.
We never mention Aunt Clara;
Her picture is turned to the wall.
Though she lives on the French Riviera
Mother says she is dead to us all.
*4
They said that she’d toil by night and by day
She’d have to scrub floors for her bread,
But inside of a week she discovered a way
To earn her board lying in bed.
*5
They told her the wages of sinners was death.
To this my aunt Clara just said
That she’d just as soon die with champagne on her breath,
And pink satin sheets on her bed.
*6
They said no one cared if she’d ever come back,
When she left us her fortune to seek,
But the boys at the firehouse painted it black,
And the ball team was mourning all week.
*7
The said that no man would make her his bride,
They prophesied children of shame,
But she’s married three earls and a baron besides,
And she hasn’t a child to her name.
*8
They said that Hellfire would punish her sin
She’d burn for her carryings-on
But just at the moment she’s toasting her skin
On the beaches of Dover and Cannes.
*9
They said that to garments of sackcloth she’d sink
With ashes to cover her head.
But just at the moment it’s ermine and mink
And a diamond tiara instead.
*10
They say that she’s sunk in the muck and the mud
But the papers last week showed a snap
Of aunt Clara, at Nice, with a prince of the blood
And a bishop asleep on her lap.
*11
The best things in life always go to the pure
The Sunday school lessons all teach
But I wonder when I see the rotogravure
Of her eighty room shack at the beach.
*12
They say that she’s sunken, they say that she fell,
From the narrow and virtuous path,
But her French formal gardens are sunken as well,
And so is her pink marble bath.
*13
My poor Mother’s life has been pious and meek
She drives in a second-hand Ford.
Aunt Clara received, for her birthday, last week
A Rolls-Royce, a Stutz and a Cord.
*14
My Mother does all of her housework alone
She has to scrub clothes for her board
It strikes me that virtue’s not only its own,
But also its only reward.
So we never mention Aunt Clara,
But I think that when I grow up tall
I shall live on the French Riviera
And let Mother turn me to the wall.
