“I got to cogitating about a lot of things, and for the first time in my life I found rimes running through what I am pleased to call my mind. So, I lighted my dip and jotted down the enclosed doggerel. They say it is a bad sign when a man starts to write poetry, but I don’t for a moment think anyone would call this by that name or that I shall even be acclaimed a Backyard Kipling. Besides, as I flourish under the sobriquet ‘Bully Beef,’ owing to my major-general proportions, I am certainly no Longfellow. But here it is, such as it is:
WHERE DO I SLEEP NEXT?
I’ve slept in cradles,
I’ve slept in arms,
I was a baby then—
Unconscious of war’s alarms.
I’ve slept on the prairie
Shooting the duck and the goose,
I’ve slept in the bush