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Flanders:
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This may seem a rather strange subject for a song, but we have written what is perhaps a rather strange song. Anyway, it's called "Misalliance". |
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Both:
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The fragrant honeysuckle spirals clockwise to the sun, |
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And many other creepers do the same. |
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But some climb anti-clockwise, the bindweed does, for one, |
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Or Convolvulus, to give her proper name. |
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Rooted on either side a door, one of each species grew, |
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And raced towards the window-ledge above. |
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Each corkscrewed to the lintel in the only way it knew, |
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Where they stopped, touched tendrils, smiled, and fell in love. |
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Said the right-handed honeysuckle to the left-handed bindweed, |
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"Oh, let us get married, if our parents don't mind, we'd |
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Be loving and inseparable, inextricably entwined, we'd |
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Live happily ever after" said the honeysuckle to the bindweed. |
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To the honeysuckle's parents it came as a shock. |
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"The bindweeds," they cried, "are inferior stock! |
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They're uncultivated, of breeding bereft, |
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We twine to the right and they twine to the left." |
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Said the anti-clockwise bindweed to the clockwise honeysuckle, |
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"We'd better start saving, many a mickle macks a muckle, |
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Then run away for a honeymoon and hope that our luck'll |
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Take a turn for the better" said the bindweed to the honeysuckle. |
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A bee who was passing remarked to them then, |
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"I've said it before and I'll say it again, |
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Consider your offshoots, if offshoots there be, |
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They'll never receive any blessing from me". |
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"Poor little sucker, how will it learn, |
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When it is climbing, which way to turn? |
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Right, left, what a disgrace, |
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Or it may go straight up and fall flat on its face!" |
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Said the right-hand-thread honeysuckle to the left-hand-thread bindweed, |
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"It seems they're against us, all fate has combined. |
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Oh my darling, oh my darling, oh my darling Colombine, |
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Thou art lost and gone forever, we shall never intertwine". |
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Together, they found them, the very next day, |
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They had pulled up their roots and just shrivelled away. |
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Deprived of that freedom for which we must fight, |
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To veer to the left or to veer to the right! |
