Rhymes of a Red Cross Man | Page 4

life had but begun,
Carrion-cold out there.
Look at his prizes all in a row:
Surely a hint of fame.
Now he's
finished with, -- nothing to show:
Doesn't it seem a shame?
Look
from the window! All you see
Was to be his one day:
Forest and
furrow, lawn and lea,
And he goes and chucks it away.
Chucks it away to die in the dark:
Somebody saw him fall,
Part of
him mud, part of him blood,
The rest of him -- not at all.
And yet
I'll bet he was never afraid,
And he went as the best of 'em go,
For
his hand was clenched on his broken blade,
And his face was turned
to the foe.
And I called him a fool . . . oh how blind was I!
And the cup of my
grief's abrim.
Will Glory o' England ever die
So long as we've lads
like him?
So long as we've fond and fearless fools,
Who, spurning
fortune and fame,
Turn out with the rallying cry of their schools,


Just bent on playing the game.

A fool! Ah no! He was more than wise.
His was the proudest part.

He died with the glory of faith in his eyes,
And the glory of love in
his heart.
And though there's never a grave to tell,
Nor a cross to
mark his fall,
Thank God! we know that he "batted well"
In the last
great Game of all.
The Volunteer
Sez I: My Country calls? Well, let it call.
I grins perlitely and
declines wiv thanks.
Go, let 'em plaster every blighted wall,
'Ere's
ONE they don't stampede into the ranks.
Them politicians with their
greasy ways;
Them empire-grabbers -- fight for 'em? No fear!
I've
seen this mess a-comin' from the days
Of Algyserious and Aggydear:
I've felt me passion rise and swell,
But . . . wot the 'ell, Bill? Wot the
'ell?
Sez I: My Country? Mine? I likes their cheek.
Me mud-bespattered
by the cars they drive,
Wot makes my measly thirty bob a week,

And sweats red blood to keep meself alive!
Fight for the right to slave
that they may spend,
Them in their mansions, me 'ere in my slum?

No, let 'em fight wot's something to defend:
But me, I've nothin' -- let
the Kaiser come.
And so I cusses 'ard and well,
But . . . wot the 'ell, Bill? Wot the 'ell?
Sez I: If they would do the decent thing,
And shield the missis and
the little 'uns,
Why, even _I_ might shout "God save the King",
And
face the chances of them 'ungry guns.
But we've got three, another on
the way;
It's that wot makes me snarl and set me jor:
The wife and
nippers, wot of 'em, I say,
If I gets knocked out in this blasted war?
Gets proper busted by a shell,
But . . . wot the 'ell, Bill? Wot the 'ell?
Ay, wot the 'ell's the use of all this talk?
To-day some boys in blue

was passin' me,
And some of 'em they 'ad no legs to walk,
And
some of 'em they 'ad no eyes to see.
And -- well, I couldn't look 'em
in the face,
And so I'm goin', goin' to declare
I'm under forty-one
and take me place
To face the music with the bunch out there.
A fool, you say! Maybe you're right.
I'll 'ave no peace unless I fight.

I've ceased to think; I only know
I've gotta go, Bill, gotta go.
The Convalescent
. . . So I walked among the willows very quietly all night; There was no
moon at all, at all; no timid star alight;
There was no light at all, at all;
I wint from tree to tree, And I called him as his mother called, but he
nivver answered me.
Oh I called him all the night-time, as I walked the wood alone; And I
listened and I listened, but I nivver heard a moan;
Then I found him
at the dawnin', when the sorry sky was red: I was lookin' for the livin',
but I only found the dead.
Sure I know that it was Shamus by the silver cross he wore; But the
bugles they were callin', and I heard the cannon roar. Oh I had no time
to tarry, so I said a little prayer,
And I clasped his hands together, and
I left him lyin' there.
Now the birds are singin', singin', and I'm home in Donegal, And it's
Springtime, and I'm thinkin' that I only dreamed it all; I dreamed about
that evil wood, all crowded with its dead,
Where I knelt beside me
brother when the battle-dawn was red.
Where I prayed beside me brother ere I wint to fight anew:
Such
dreams as these are evil dreams; I can't believe it's true. Where all is
love and laughter, sure it's hard to think of loss . . . But mother's sayin'
nothin', and she clasps -- A SILVER CROSS.
The Man from Athabaska

Oh the wife she tried to tell me that 'twas nothing but the thrumming Of
a wood-pecker a-rapping on the hollow of a tree;
And