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Authors: Kathryn Petras
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the 1890s Amanda McKittrick Ros began amazing audiences with her novels, all of which bore alliterative titles such as
Irene Iddesleigh,
and
Donald Dudley.
These were soon followed by Ros’s equally alliteratively titled books of verse:
Poems of Puncture
and
Fumes of Formation,
which Ros explains was
hatched within a mind fringed with Fumes of Formation, the Ingenious Innings of Inspiration and Thorny Tincture of Thought.
Ros applied those “Ingenious Innings of Inspiration” to transform her own rather prosaic life in Northern Ireland. She dropped the extra
s
from her husband’s last name of Ross, probably to link herself to the ancient family of de Ros; claimed that the McKittricks were descended from King Sitric of Denmark; and elevated her beloved husband to friendship with the eminent Victorian leader Sir Randolph Churchill, who apparently once happened to pass through her husband’s train station.
Ros was famous for her bizarre word usage. She coined such descriptive terms as “sanctified measures of time” (Sunday), “globes of glare” (eyes), “bony supports” (legs), “southern necessary” (pants—
south
refers to the southern or lower portion of the body) and “globules of liquid lava” (sweat).
Although not the “high-bred daughter of distinguished effeminacy” she wished to have been, Ros was something else: a writer with a gift for (as she puts it) “disturbing the bowels.”
On Visiting Westminster Abbey
A “Reduced Dignity” invited me to muse on its merits
Holy Moses! Have a look!
Flesh decayed in every nook!
Some rare bits of brain lie here
Mortal loads of beef and beer,
Some of whom are turned to dust,
Every one bids lost to lust
….
Famous some were—yet they died;
Poets—Statesmen—Rogues beside,
Kings—Queens, all of them do rot,
What about them? Now—they’re not!
A Little Belgian Orphan
Daddy was a Belgian and so was Mammy too,
And why I’m now in Larne I want to tell to you:
Daddy was a soldier and fought his level best
For both his King and Country, and I’ll tell you the rest.
Our home was snug and cosy and how happy we were all,
Until Daddy he was ordered to obey his country’s call.…
….
One day a short time after, a troop of Germans came,
While we sat around the table, playing a childish game;
Mammy was busy baking bread for all our tea,
When the door was flung wide open and in stepped Germans three.
One spoke to Mammy saying, “Stay your labour for your kids,
Give to us all this bread! or we’ll stab your bony ribs!”
And raising high his glittering sword one cut off Mammy’s head,
Her body fell upon me, while her poor neck bled and bled!
Three shots soon followed after, and my dear wee brothers three
Fell dead across poor Mammy whose neck bled on my knee;
I screamed, “Oh sirs, wee Hors is shot, and Buhn and Wilhelm too!”
Then on my knees I fell and begged they’d spare wee brother Dhu;
Just then they raised the little lad and threw him on the fire,
And wreathed in smiles they watched him burn until he did expire;
My poor wee sisters screamed and cried, and clutched dead Mammy’s hands,
When lo! they cut off baby’s head and also her wee hands.
….
Ah sirs, I begged, just kill me now, else I shall die with fear.…
One drew his sword—cut off my hand, I reached the other out,
“Cut this off too, ye cowards?” I then began to shout.
In rushed some neighbour women with knives both bright and sharp
And stabbed the Kaiser’s butchers into their very hearts.
….
Take warning all ye British Boys, turn out in thousands strong;
Go fight for King and Country and France will aid you on!
If you should meet the Kaiser, cut off his only arm,
For his “wee one,” it won’t matter, it can’t do any harm.
I’ve just heard Daddy, too, is killed, so all alone I’m left,
Of brothers, sisters, parents dear, I have been made bereft.…
Some day I’ll die and meet them all, ’twill be a joyous sight,
For us to live in glory, and view the
Irene Iddesleigh,
and
Donald Dudley.
These were soon followed by Ros’s equally alliteratively titled books of verse:
Poems of Puncture
and
Fumes of Formation,
which Ros explains was
hatched within a mind fringed with Fumes of Formation, the Ingenious Innings of Inspiration and Thorny Tincture of Thought.
Ros applied those “Ingenious Innings of Inspiration” to transform her own rather prosaic life in Northern Ireland. She dropped the extra
s
from her husband’s last name of Ross, probably to link herself to the ancient family of de Ros; claimed that the McKittricks were descended from King Sitric of Denmark; and elevated her beloved husband to friendship with the eminent Victorian leader Sir Randolph Churchill, who apparently once happened to pass through her husband’s train station.
Ros was famous for her bizarre word usage. She coined such descriptive terms as “sanctified measures of time” (Sunday), “globes of glare” (eyes), “bony supports” (legs), “southern necessary” (pants—
south
refers to the southern or lower portion of the body) and “globules of liquid lava” (sweat).
Although not the “high-bred daughter of distinguished effeminacy” she wished to have been, Ros was something else: a writer with a gift for (as she puts it) “disturbing the bowels.”
On Visiting Westminster Abbey
A “Reduced Dignity” invited me to muse on its merits
Holy Moses! Have a look!
Flesh decayed in every nook!
Some rare bits of brain lie here
Mortal loads of beef and beer,
Some of whom are turned to dust,
Every one bids lost to lust
….
Famous some were—yet they died;
Poets—Statesmen—Rogues beside,
Kings—Queens, all of them do rot,
What about them? Now—they’re not!
A Little Belgian Orphan
Daddy was a Belgian and so was Mammy too,
And why I’m now in Larne I want to tell to you:
Daddy was a soldier and fought his level best
For both his King and Country, and I’ll tell you the rest.
Our home was snug and cosy and how happy we were all,
Until Daddy he was ordered to obey his country’s call.…
….
One day a short time after, a troop of Germans came,
While we sat around the table, playing a childish game;
Mammy was busy baking bread for all our tea,
When the door was flung wide open and in stepped Germans three.
One spoke to Mammy saying, “Stay your labour for your kids,
Give to us all this bread! or we’ll stab your bony ribs!”
And raising high his glittering sword one cut off Mammy’s head,
Her body fell upon me, while her poor neck bled and bled!
Three shots soon followed after, and my dear wee brothers three
Fell dead across poor Mammy whose neck bled on my knee;
I screamed, “Oh sirs, wee Hors is shot, and Buhn and Wilhelm too!”
Then on my knees I fell and begged they’d spare wee brother Dhu;
Just then they raised the little lad and threw him on the fire,
And wreathed in smiles they watched him burn until he did expire;
My poor wee sisters screamed and cried, and clutched dead Mammy’s hands,
When lo! they cut off baby’s head and also her wee hands.
….
Ah sirs, I begged, just kill me now, else I shall die with fear.…
One drew his sword—cut off my hand, I reached the other out,
“Cut this off too, ye cowards?” I then began to shout.
In rushed some neighbour women with knives both bright and sharp
And stabbed the Kaiser’s butchers into their very hearts.
….
Take warning all ye British Boys, turn out in thousands strong;
Go fight for King and Country and France will aid you on!
If you should meet the Kaiser, cut off his only arm,
For his “wee one,” it won’t matter, it can’t do any harm.
I’ve just heard Daddy, too, is killed, so all alone I’m left,
Of brothers, sisters, parents dear, I have been made bereft.…
Some day I’ll die and meet them all, ’twill be a joyous sight,
For us to live in glory, and view the
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