War Rhymes | Page 7

slackers,
Ten little
slacker men.

Jack Sprat can eat no fat,
His wife can eat no lean,
Because upon
their platter now
No meat is ever seen.
Make a cake, make a cake, my good man,
Make it of treacle and
cornmeal and bran,
Tick it and pick it and mark it with B,
And eat it
for breakfast and dinner and tea.
Little deeds and mortgages,
Little bonds and stocks,
Help amid
financial storms
To keep us off the rocks.
Little loads of stove wood,
Little jags of coal,
Make our pocket
books look sick,
And put us in the hole.
Little Jack Horner sat in a corner,
Eating his whole wheat pie,
He
looked pretty glum for he found not a plum,
And he said, I don't like
this old pie.
Little Tommy Tucker sang for his supper,
What did he sing for?
White bread and butter;
But he had to take corn-cake instead of white
bread,
With oleomargarine on it to spread.
Farmer Dingle had a little pig,
Not very little and not very big;
It
weighed two hundred or a few pounds over
And brought fifty dollars
when sold to a drover.
Then Farmer Dingle stood up and lied,
And
Mrs. Dingle sat down and cried,
"Hogs eat so much valuable feed,"
said he,
"They need," said he,
"Good feed," said she,
So there's
really no money in pigee wigee wee.
One little man went to battle,
One little man stayed at home,
One
little man got white bread and butter,
One little man got none,
One
little man cried see, see, see,
You'll eat brown bread
Till the war is

done.
Tom, Tom, the piper's son,
Stole a pig and away he run,
"High cost
of meat
I've got you beat,"
Said Tom, while making his retreat.
Jack, Nick and Jill went after Bill,
And fought on land and water,

Till Nick fell down and lost his crown,
And Bill went tumbling after.
There was a crooked man
Who wore a crooked smile,
And built a
crooked railroad
O'er many a crooked mile,
He got some crooked
statesmen
To play his crooked games,
And they all got crooked
titles
Before their crooked names.

Sing a song of sixpence,
Country going dry,
Four and twenty booze
shops
Selling no more rye.
When the bars were open,
Whiskey had its fling,
Now we ride the
water cart,
Along with George, our king.
Once dad, in the bar room,
Counted out his money,
Weary mother
sat at home,
Patching clothes for sonny.
Now dad's in the garden
Wearing out his clothes,
Money in his
pocket,
Bloom all off his nose.
=Miscellaneous=
BEDLAM
October, 1914
"The world is mad, my masters,"
The poet had the facts
To prove
this sweeping statement,
In man's punk-headed acts;
For since the
day when Adam
Partook of the wrong tree,
We've toiled, and

slipped, and blundered;
"What fools these mortals be".
Take out your horse or auto,
And drive the country roads,
And see
the fields and orchards
Bearing their precious loads.
Old Mother
Earth produces
With lavish hand and free,
But half is lost or ruined

By man's stupidity.
Ten thousand tons of apples
Will surely go to waste
While poor
folk in the cities
Will hardly get a taste.
We take good wheat and
barley
And manufacture bums,
Whose wives and little children

Are starving in the slums.
The man that's poor as woodwork,
And nearly always broke,
Can
somehow find a nickel
To puff away in smoke;
While those who
have the money
To eat and drink their fills,
Are sure to over-do it,

And run up doctor bills.
If, when the times are peaceful
I kill one man, by heck!
They'll call
it bloody murder,
And hang me by the neck.
In war-time he's a hero,

Who sends through air or sea
A bomb to blow a thousand
Into
Eternity.
And so, dear gentle reader,
You see, by all the rules,
That earth's
whole population
Except ourselves are fools.
THE CERTAINTIES
When icy blasts blow fierce and wild,
Cutting the face like steel,

And summer's heart is trodden down
'Neath winter's iron heel,
It's
all a part of Nature's plan,
So stay and play the game;
Next Spring
will bring the violets,
And roses just the same.
When Pharaoh's lean ill-favored kine
Have grazed the pastures brown.

And, on a parched and starving world
The brazen sun glares down;

Though Canaan's forests, fields and farms,
Are scorched, as with a

flame,
There's food in Joseph's granaries
In Egypt just the same.
When Pharaoh makes the task more hard
For overburdened hands,

And stubble fields refuse the straw
His tale of bricks demands;

What matter if our little lives
Go out in fear and shame?
The waters
of the mighty Nile
Flow onward just the same.
When, at the front, to bar the way,
The Red Sea waters stand,
And
Egypt's hosts are close behind,
A fierce relentless band;
Intent their
firstborn to avenge,
Their Hebrew slaves to claim:
Look up, and see
the pyramids,
Firm standing, just the same.
When human ghouls hell's lid uplift
To plunder, burn and kill,
And
Truth seems driven from her throne,
Say to your heart, "Be still!"

Don't think that Freedom's day is done,
And Honor but a name,
For
right still reigns and planets gleam
In Heaven just the same.
THE FRIENDLY SPIES
A Tale of Camp Borden
November, 1916
The main camping ground of the Huron Indians was near where Camp
Borden is now situated.
Where soldiers build their camp fires,
At night there gather 'round

The