"Get Up!"

"Get Up!"

Original Text
Joseph Skipsey, Songs and Lyrics (London: Walter Scott, 1892): 8. British Library 011653.m.45
1"Get up!" the caller calls, "Get up!"
2    And in the dead of night,
3To win the bairns their bite and sup,
4    I rise a weary wight.
5My flannel dudden donn'd, thrice o'er
6    My birds are kiss'd, and then
7I with a whistle shut the door,
8    I may not ope again.

Notes

1] Dante G. Rossetti, reviewing Skipsey's A Book of Lyrics on October 29, 1878, said that "`Get up' seems to me equal to anything in the language for direct and quiet pathetic force." Back to Line
3] bairns: children. Back to Line
5] dudden: duds, shabby clothes (old form of the plural? not in OED). Back to Line
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2001
Rhyme
abab