The Mitfords
︎︎︎ Edward McLaren
︎ Oct 20, 2026
For O.C-K.
What one, two, three, four, five, six underground
Ghosts knock upon their boxes to be found?
What—first and last—has every female done
To make her life seem so short, underdone,
As six boxed scones, now all too cold to eat,
That each taste different from their heads to feet?
Perverse it might now be to dig them up,
Their rotten treasures are more than corrupt;
Their beauty’s lustre, though the meat on skulls,
Provokes Thought’s thirst for secrets and for skills,
As viewers stare and drool before a meal
Painted by Géricault, mutton or eel—
(Until they blink and realise what it is:
Théodore Géricault’s Anatomical Pieces).
NANCY was eldest, gimmick novelist,
A diarist of communists and fascists;
Wrote The Pursuit of Love…[well, that took its toll]:
Despised to drink for horror of self-control.
NANCE teased a lot, recorded, could demean—
A pastry of a woman without cream.
PAMELA, second eldest, covert lamb,
Was nicknamed ‘Woman’ all her earthly span
For wanting but a little bit of peace,
A life of poultry, quiet pigs to lease;
A Stepford scone, pale and traditionalist
With jam and butter in her dainty fist.
Unlike DIANA, earthly PAMELA!
—In her own right, and married to, a high-flyer!
How aeronautical a spectacle,
This huntress-goddess dialectical:
A master-mistress of her own divorce,
A dominatrix of political discourse—
A thousand ships were launched for Helen’s face,
But who could view DIANA, boy-girl ace,
And speculate she didn’t quite belong
To a great race of masters, right or wrong.
(There was enchantment in that period
Of modernising to a modern Herod,
Or eating, say, rare Sponges bought off slaves,
Who either drowned in industries or waves.)
Yet feud they might, there still was UNITY
To shrink DIANA’s politics to kitties:
‘So you want Britain to be dominant,
Yet seal yourself off like a little convent
From radical violence? …Do you live—my DI,
Within my world, or do you Judaise!?’
U was conceived—where else?—but Swastika,
A village in Ontario, Canada.
UNITY was Bobo; DI was Honks, Cord,
Nard, in Boudledige, their language. Bo bored
Her head through with a bullet when she thought,
She—Bobo (?)—thought, her Hitler was forgot;
That there would be no future after the war.
Then Hitler heard his ‘Valkyrie’, his bawd,
Had made herself his undesirable.
U thought, yes, if U could, that he was able
To see she was…herself, spare her for that
His country’s bombs, for hers, led by rats.
Bo’s head grew cold; her form was all an ache,
A quiet rave. To him, she was his fruitcake.
Then chortled Decca, Squalor, “The Red Sheep”—
Drooled like a Glebe Cow to hear Bobo weep,
‘This all is but the benefit of privilege,
Destroying which, to us, is sacrilege;
Thus burn the house, and hang the bourgeoise.
I am extreme and I am not extreme.’
JESSICA had eloped with Romilly,
Fought in the Civil War with Communists,
Sang ‘Bela Ciao!’ (perhaps) and wasn’t punished
Like dug-up nuns were famished in the sun…
And Orwell gurned to learn whose side he was on.
She used to share a room with Honks, of all,
Balancing Swastika posters with her Sickles.
She died in ’96, passed Orwell’s way:
Disillusioned, she sang pop songs all day.
If Decca and the Dectones was her band,
RED was a tart—seized: Soviet contraband.
…And DEBORAH was the last, painted by Freud
A duchess barbequed and half-destroyed,
Living but blamelessly as parents want;
Not fired to blast or bombardier, just haunt.
She joined the Social Democrats one time,
And was observed to be extremely refined.
DEB had seven babies, several Chatsworth debts,
Became a duchess because of two deaths,
(Her brother and father-in-law). She wrote memoirs,
Loved poultry; like Woman, was bizarre
In being normal like few of them were.
In Boudledige, DEB’s nickname Nine was formed
Because the others viewed her “fine” (deformed).
She died the last of all the girls, was seen
Coffined at 94, 2014.
Her life was diligent, symmetrical,
A hot cross bun without surprise projectile.
Six graves have opened up as six boxed foods
That tasted strange, distorted by odd moods;
Savoury enough to store some prettiness
Yet stalked by worms as those that think to bless
Is but to pray, not tear back golden claws,
Fang mouths with iron, bronze the locks on doors;
Become, in short, more than the one who births,
And is an ENGLAND, female, delicate—
That is insensate, filled with mirth and hate,
At who we grew to be past their decades.
No braver six have formed since six were dead.
Their crumbs bestride our own horrific heads
Like some idea of new demographics
Melts to a corpse whenever we’re in public.
What one, two, three, four, five, six underground
Ghosts knock upon their boxes to be found?
What—first and last—has every female done
To make her life seem so short, underdone,
As six boxed scones, now all too cold to eat,
That each taste different from their heads to feet?
Perverse it might now be to dig them up,
Their rotten treasures are more than corrupt;
Their beauty’s lustre, though the meat on skulls,
Provokes Thought’s thirst for secrets and for skills,
As viewers stare and drool before a meal
Painted by Géricault, mutton or eel—
(Until they blink and realise what it is:
Théodore Géricault’s Anatomical Pieces).
NANCY was eldest, gimmick novelist,
A diarist of communists and fascists;
Wrote The Pursuit of Love…[well, that took its toll]:
Despised to drink for horror of self-control.
NANCE teased a lot, recorded, could demean—
A pastry of a woman without cream.
PAMELA, second eldest, covert lamb,
Was nicknamed ‘Woman’ all her earthly span
For wanting but a little bit of peace,
A life of poultry, quiet pigs to lease;
A Stepford scone, pale and traditionalist
With jam and butter in her dainty fist.
Unlike DIANA, earthly PAMELA!
—In her own right, and married to, a high-flyer!
How aeronautical a spectacle,
This huntress-goddess dialectical:
A master-mistress of her own divorce,
A dominatrix of political discourse—
A thousand ships were launched for Helen’s face,
But who could view DIANA, boy-girl ace,
And speculate she didn’t quite belong
To a great race of masters, right or wrong.
(There was enchantment in that period
Of modernising to a modern Herod,
Or eating, say, rare Sponges bought off slaves,
Who either drowned in industries or waves.)
Yet feud they might, there still was UNITY
To shrink DIANA’s politics to kitties:
‘So you want Britain to be dominant,
Yet seal yourself off like a little convent
From radical violence? …Do you live—my DI,
Within my world, or do you Judaise!?’
U was conceived—where else?—but Swastika,
A village in Ontario, Canada.
UNITY was Bobo; DI was Honks, Cord,
Nard, in Boudledige, their language. Bo bored
Her head through with a bullet when she thought,
She—Bobo (?)—thought, her Hitler was forgot;
That there would be no future after the war.
Then Hitler heard his ‘Valkyrie’, his bawd,
Had made herself his undesirable.
U thought, yes, if U could, that he was able
To see she was…herself, spare her for that
His country’s bombs, for hers, led by rats.
Bo’s head grew cold; her form was all an ache,
A quiet rave. To him, she was his fruitcake.
Then chortled Decca, Squalor, “The Red Sheep”—
Drooled like a Glebe Cow to hear Bobo weep,
‘This all is but the benefit of privilege,
Destroying which, to us, is sacrilege;
Thus burn the house, and hang the bourgeoise.
I am extreme and I am not extreme.’
JESSICA had eloped with Romilly,
Fought in the Civil War with Communists,
Sang ‘Bela Ciao!’ (perhaps) and wasn’t punished
Like dug-up nuns were famished in the sun…
And Orwell gurned to learn whose side he was on.
She used to share a room with Honks, of all,
Balancing Swastika posters with her Sickles.
She died in ’96, passed Orwell’s way:
Disillusioned, she sang pop songs all day.
If Decca and the Dectones was her band,
RED was a tart—seized: Soviet contraband.
…And DEBORAH was the last, painted by Freud
A duchess barbequed and half-destroyed,
Living but blamelessly as parents want;
Not fired to blast or bombardier, just haunt.
She joined the Social Democrats one time,
And was observed to be extremely refined.
DEB had seven babies, several Chatsworth debts,
Became a duchess because of two deaths,
(Her brother and father-in-law). She wrote memoirs,
Loved poultry; like Woman, was bizarre
In being normal like few of them were.
In Boudledige, DEB’s nickname Nine was formed
Because the others viewed her “fine” (deformed).
She died the last of all the girls, was seen
Coffined at 94, 2014.
Her life was diligent, symmetrical,
A hot cross bun without surprise projectile.
Six graves have opened up as six boxed foods
That tasted strange, distorted by odd moods;
Savoury enough to store some prettiness
Yet stalked by worms as those that think to bless
Is but to pray, not tear back golden claws,
Fang mouths with iron, bronze the locks on doors;
Become, in short, more than the one who births,
And is an ENGLAND, female, delicate—
That is insensate, filled with mirth and hate,
At who we grew to be past their decades.
No braver six have formed since six were dead.
Their crumbs bestride our own horrific heads
Like some idea of new demographics
Melts to a corpse whenever we’re in public.
Edward McLaren is a third-year DPhil candidate at the University of Oxford studying Jane Austen and gentry blood myths. He is the author of Bothelford’s Gone.