THE BALLAD OF JONES'S BLIGHTY.
There are some men who dwell for years
Within the battle's hem,
Almost impervious, it appears,
To shot or stratagem;
Some well-intentioned sprite contrives
By hook or crook to save their lives
(It also keeps them from their wives),
And Jones was one of them.
The hugest bolts of Messrs. KRUPP
Hissed harmless through his hair;
The Bosch might blow his billet up,
But he would be elsewhere;
And if with soul-destroying thud
A monstrous Minnie hit the mud,
The thing was sure to be a dud
If only Jones was there.
Men envied him his scatheless skin,
But he deplored the fact,
And day by day, from sheer chagrin,
He did some dangerous act;
He slew innumerable Huns,
He captured towns, he captured guns;
His friends went home with Blighty ones,
But he remained intact.
We had a horse of antique shape,
Mild and of mellowed age,
And, after some unique escape,
Which made him mad with rage,
On this grave steed Jones rode away...
They bore him back at break of day,
And Jones is now with Mrs. J.—
The convalescent stage.
The world observed the chance was droll
That sent so mild a hack
To smite the invulnerable soul
Whom WILLIAM could not whack;
But spiteful folk remarked, of course,
He must have used terrific force
Before he got that wretched horse
To throw him off its back.
A.P.H.