Nursery rhymes and murdering times

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning 

I feel that I cannot succinctly express myself unless it's well into the night... Or morning.

It's frightening how easily something so "innocent" can hold so many dark, twisted secrets. It's frightening how one could take something so innocent and corrupt it with ease. TS Eliot takes lines from the nursery rhyme Here we go round the Mulberry Bush and turns it into his own dark rendition to fit his disillusioned poem The Hollow Men. It starts and ends the third section of his poem. Here are the first few verses of the original nursery rhyme.

Here we go 'round the mulberry bush,
The mulberry bush, the mulberry bush.
Here we go 'round the mulberry bush,
So early in the morning.

This is the way we wash our clothes,
We wash our clothes, we wash our clothes.
This is the way we wash our clothes,
So early Monday morning.

This is the way we iron our clothes,
We iron our clothes, we iron our clothes.
This is the way we iron our clothes,
So early Tuesday morning.

Notice how the following verses each contain repetitive instructions, beginning with "This is the way...". Sound familiar? Now recall the last stanza of The Hollow Men:

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

I think Eliot's transformation of an innocent nursery rhyme into a morbid chant suggests how easy it is to corrupt something that is meant to be pure.

I've come to realize that many of my favourite childhood fables and nursery rhymes are actually downright disturbing. Take King Midas, or Rock a Bye Baby, for example. King Midas is about a greedy king who loves gold to such an extent that he is granted with the "power" to turn everything he touches into gold. Guess what turns to gold? His daughter. Regardless of the regret that followed, it is disturbing how one's greed leads to such grand mistakes. Rock a Bye Baby is a lullaby about a baby in a cradle that falls from the top of a tree. What a comforting melody to fall asleep to, isn't it?

So what I can extract from The Hollow Men, so far, is an innocence that is corrupted. 

More to come.

Here we go round English AP
At 5 o'clock in the morning