OUR GRANDPARENT'S YARNS
by
Leonard Pounds and Cuthbert Clarke (1921)

Now our grandparents sit in their easy chairs,
With wrinkled-up brows 'neath their silver hairs
Comparing our latter-day ways with theirs
And shaking their heads the while.
Their assertions will all of them go to show
How pure were the people of long ago.
We're told that their standard we're far below;
That mankind then knew no guile.
The yarns that our grandparents spin!
In their day it seems the world was free of sin!
Boys all loved to go to school,
Where they never broke a rule,
Or inserted in the master's chair a pin!
It appears that all young men,
Never stayed out after ten,
And no maiden bared her shoulders at the play!
They possessed no vice or taints-
Just a crowd of earthly saints
Were the folks of our grandparents' day!
Hear our grannies avow, with a wry grimace,
That slang on their tongues never found a place,
And never a maid would her lips disgrace
By cigarette held between.
In quarrels all men a soft answer chose,
Instead of proceeding by violent blows,
To alter the contour of someone's nose,
To vent a revengeful spleen!
The yarns that our grandparents spin!
In their day it seems the world was free of sin!
Ev'ry lawyer just would be,
And would ne'er accept a fee
If a client's case perchance he failed to win!
Calves and ankles were not shown;
Tittle-tattle wasn't known;
And from church umbrellas never went astray.
This conclusion we derive-
All too good to be alive
Were the folks of our grandparents' day.
Our credulity strains at its leashes tight
When we gather that cabmen were all polite;
That every post office pen would write:
And that little boys all said "please."
To his elders each junior raised his hat,
No person played billiards, or games like that!
One doubts if a dog ever chased a cat,
Or a mouse ever stole the cheese!
The yarns that our grandparents spin!
In their day it seems the world was free of sin!
They will laud up to the sky
Deeds performed in days gone by,
But decry our own with supercilious grin.
Though we smile at tales like these.
We grow older, by degrees,
And grandparents we may be some future day:
And when we're toothless, bent, and lame,
We shall say the very same
Things as all of our grandparents say.