THE HAIRIES.
We have carried our lancer's, hussars and dragoons
And tugged in the batteries, columns and trains,
On pavé that smoked under white summer noons
And tracks that washed out under black winter rains.
We've shivered in standings hock-deep in the mud,
With matted tails turned to the drift of the sleet;
We've seen the bombs flash and been spattered with blood
Of mates as they rolled, belly-ripped, at our feet.
We've dragged ammunition up shell-smitten tracks,
Round bottomless craters, through stump-littered woods;
When the waggons broke down took the load on our backs
And somehow or other delivered the goods.
But the dread roads, the red roads will know us no more;
Oh, it's England, chum, England for you and for me!
The countryfolk wave us as westward we pour
Down the jolly white highways that lead to the sea.
There's a mist of frail blossom adrift in the trees,
The Spring song of birds sets the orchards a-thrill;
And now on our brows blows the salt Channel breeze,
The busy port hums in the lap of the hill.
So warp out your transports and bear us away
From the Yser and Somme, from the Ancre and the Aisne,
From fire-blackened deserts of shell-pitted clay,
And give us our Chilterns and Cotswolds again.
Oh, show us old England all silver and gold,
With the flame o' the gorse and the flower o' the thorn;
We long for lush meadow-lands where we were foaled
And boast of great runs with the Belvoir and Quorn.
The pack-pony dreams of a primrosy combe,
A leisurely life in a governess-cart,
Plum-cake and a bottle-nosed gardener-groom;
The Clyde has a Wensleydale farm in his heart.
We whinny and frolic, light-headed with bliss,
Forgetting leg-weariness, terror and scars;
Ye ladies of England, oh, blow a soft kiss
To the hairy old horses come home from the wars.
PATLANDER.