As Auden rightly notes in "Principles of English Prosody", the correct
spelling in the line by Meade Minnigerode and George S. Pomeroy, of Yale,
should be
eternitee
but Jones thought the publisher would never catch THAT implicature.
In a message dated 6/11/2015 11:59:08 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
rpaul@xxxxxxxx writes:
I'm sure you know as much as Peter Paul Grice
When Peter was at Mory's he was told Jones, a former Whiffenpoof, had taken
it from their anthem:
gentlemen songsters off on a spree
doomed from here to eternitee
god have mercy on such as we
baa baa! baa
Peter was ESPECIALLY delighted by the four-part harmony in /as we/, which
is SLIGHTLY ('but only _slightly_, mind, dissonant) -- and which is best
achieved _a cappella_, as it should ('Figuratively, Peter added -- I don't
mean literally in a chapel). When Peter sang the song to Marilyn Monroe (those
were the days), she infamously said:
"That's perhaps the silliest song I've ever heard in my whole life."
Peter took Marilyn to be implicating, 'especially as compared to
Prokoffieff's lieder cycle'.
Incidentally, Peter Paul's mother, a diehard High Anglican*, christened the
boy thus, "So I cannot be said that I robbed Peter to pay Paul" (*Peter =
Westminster).
Cheers,
Speranza
To the tables down at Mory's,
To the place where Louis dwells,
To the dear old Temple Bar
We love so well,
Sing the Whiffenpoofs assembled
With their glasses raised on high,
And the magic of their singing casts its spell.
Yes, the magic of their singing
Of the songs we love so well:
"Shall I, Wasting" and "Mavourneen" and the rest.
We will serenade our Louis
While life and voice shall last
Then we'll pass and be forgotten with the rest.
We are poor little lambs
Who have lost our way.
Baa! Baa! Baa!
We are little black sheep
Who have gone astray.
Baa! Baa! Baa!
Gentlemen songsters off on a spree
Damned from here to eternity
God have mercy on such as we.
Baa! Baa! Baa!
There is a more boring version that is sometimes sung, if not
(necessarily) at Mory's, since the tune is slightly different and composed by
Guy H.
Scull, of Harvard:
To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned,
To my brethren in their sorrow overseas,
Sings a gentleman of England cleanly bred, machinely crammed,
And a trooper of the Empress, if you please.
Yea, a trooper of the forces who has run his own six horses,
And faith he went the pace and went it blind,
And the world was more than kin while he held the ready tin,
But to-day the Sergeant's something less than kind.
We're poor little lambs who've lost our way,
Baa! Baa! Baa!
We're little black sheep who've gone astray,
Baa—aa—aa!
Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree,
Doomed from here to Eternity,
God ha' mercy on such as we,
Baa! Yah! Bah!
Oh, it's sweet to sweat through stables, sweet to empty kitchen slops,
And it's sweet to hear the tales the troopers tell,
To dance with blowzy housemaids at the regimental hops
And thrash the cad who says you waltz too well.
Yes, it makes you cock-a-hoop to be "Rider" to your troop,
And branded with a blasted worsted spur,
When you envy, O how keenly, one poor Tommy being cleanly
Who blacks your boots and sometimes calls you "Sir".
If the home we never write to, and the oaths we never keep,
And all we know most distant and most dear,
Across the snoring barrack-room return to break our sleep,
Can you blame us if we soak ourselves in beer?
When the drunken comrade mutters and the great guard-lantern gutters
And the horror of our fall is written plain,
Every secret, self-revealing on the aching white-washed ceiling,
Do you wonder that we drug ourselves from pain?
We have done with Hope and Honour, we are lost to Love and Truth,
We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung,
And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth.
God help us, for we knew the worst too young!
Our shame is clean repentance for the crime that brought the sentence,
Our pride it is to know no spur of pride,
And the Curse of Reuben holds us till an alien turf enfolds us
And we die, and none can tell Them where we died.
We're poor little lambs who've lost our way,
Baa! Baa! Baa!
We're little black sheep who've gone astray,
Baa—aa—aa!
Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree,
Doomed from here to Eternity,
God ha' mercy on such as we,
Baa! Yah! Bah!
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