Refugee Blues by WH Audin.Say this city has ten million souls,Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no place for us.Once we had a country and we thought it fair,Look in the atlas and you'll find it there:We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,Every spring it blossoms anew:Old passports can't do that, my dear, old passports can't do that.The consul banged the table and said,"If you've got no passport you're officially dead":But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.Went to a committee; they offered me a chair;Asked me politely to return next year:But where shall we go to-day, my dear, but where shall we go to-day?Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said;"If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread":He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me.Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;It was Hitler over Europe, saying, "They must die":O we were in his mind, my dear, O we were in his mind.Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,Saw a door opened and a cat let in:But they weren't German Jews, my dear, but they weren't German Jews.Went down the harbour and stood upon the quay,Saw the fish swimming as if they were free:Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.Walked through a wood, saw the birds in the trees;They had no politicians and sang at their ease:They weren't the human race, my dear, they weren't the human race.Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,A thousand windows and a thousand doors:Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours.Stood on a great plain in the falling snow;Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro:Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me.
Gerry Boyce ● 17d