There's a ribbon of grass either side
Of the little old road;
It's a strip just so wide,
A strip nobody owns,
Where a man's weary bones
When he feels getting old
May lie crushing the gold
Of the silverweed flower
For a long lazy hour
By the little old road.
There's no need to guide the old mare
On the little old road.
She knows that just there
Is the big gravel pit
(How we played in it
As mites of boys
In our corduroys!)
And that here is the pond
With the poplars beyond,
And more May—always May,
Away and away
Down the little old road.
There's a lot to make a man glad
On the little old road
(It's the home-going road),
And a lot to make him sad.
Ah! he'd like to forget,
But he can't, not just yet,
With chaps still out there. . . .
She's stopping, the steady old mare.
Is it here the road bends?
So the long journey ends
At the end of the old road,
The little old road.
There's some one, you say, at the gate
Of the little old house by the road?
Is it Mother? Or Kate?
And they're not going to mind
That, since "Wypers," [1] I'm blind,
And the road is a long dark road?
GERTRUDE VAUGHAN.
[1] The Battle of Ypres.
HARRY LAUDER SINGS
Harry Lauder, an extremely popular Scotch singer and entertainer, gave his services to help cheer the soldiers on the western front.
The men went wild with enthusiasm and joy wherever he went. One day I was taking Harry to see the grave of his only child, Captain John Lauder of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, as fine a lad as ever wore a kilt, and as good and brave a son as ever a father had.