UNDESERVING  NATIVE

  by Walter Nash

Missionary zeal, my darling,
ever intolerant
of piled ancestral skulls and tribal rites,
required the savage to wear underpants
and honour the Queen
with all her splendid soldiers
or earn his daily bread at a bully´s hand
and sing his way into saintliness.

But what shall we say, my dearest,
of you, saving me
from my archaic masculine habitudes?
(“What!  Change my shirt? What´s wrong with this I´ve on?”)
Bully me as you may
with tender loving care,
no missionary zeal, I hope, will goad me
into respectability.