Kitabı oku: «My Army, O, My Army! and Other Songs»

Henry Lawson

My Army, O, My Army! and Other Songs

Published by Good Press, 2022

goodpress@okpublishing.info

EAN 4066338083272

Table of Contents

Song of the Dardanelles

Peddling Round the World

Grey Wolves Grey

Callaghan’s Hotel

The March of Ivan

Mostly Slavonic

The Fairy West

Dawgs of War

A Slight Misunderstanding at the Jasper Gate

A Mixed Battle Song

The Three Quiet Gentlemen

The Unknown God A Phantasy of Optimism.

The Captains

A Dirge of Joy

A New John Bull

The Vanguard

Said the Kaiser to the Spy

The Old Stockman’s Lament

A Fantasy of War

A Mate Can Do No Wrong

The Lady of the Motor-Car

Young Kings and Old

Next Door

The Route March

Fighting Hard

Booth’s Drum

THE END

My army, O, my army! The time I dreamed of comes!

I want to see your colours; I want to hear your drums!

I heard them in my boyhood when all men’s hearts seemed cold;

I heard them as a Young Man—and I am growing old!

My army, O, my army! The signs are manifold!

My army, O, my army! My army and my Queen!

I used to sing your battle-songs when I was seventeen!

They came to me from ages, they came from far and near;

They came to me from Paris, they came to me from Here!—

They came when I was marching with the Army of the Rear.

My Queen’s dark eyes were flashing (oh, she was younger then!);

My Queen’s Red Cap was redder than the reddest blood of men!

My Queen marched like an Amazon, with anger manifest—

Her dark hair darkly matted from a knifegash in her breast

(For blood will flow where milk will not—her sisters knew the rest).

My legions ne’er were listed, they had no need to be;

My army ne’er was trained in arms—’twas trained in misery!

It took long years to mould it, but war could never drown

The shuffling of my army’s feet in the hunger-haunted town—

A little child was murdered, and so Tyranny went down.

My army kept no order, my army kept no time;

My army dug no trenches, yet died in dust and slime;

Its troops were fiercely ignorant, as to the manner born;

Its clothes were rags and tatters, or patches worn and torn—

Ah, me! It wore a uniform that I have often worn!

The faces of my army were ghastly as the dead;

My army’s cause was Hunger, my army’s cry was “Bread!”

It called on God and Mary and Christ of Nazareth;

It cried to kings and courtesans that fainted at its breath—

Its women beat their poor, flat breasts where babes had starved to death.

.....

My army! My army—I hear the sound of drums

Above the roar of battles—and, lo! my army comes!

Nor creed of man may stay it—nor war, nor nation’s law—

The pikes go through the firing-lines as pitchforks go through straw—

Like pitchforks through the litter, while empires stand in awe.

Song of the Dardanelles

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The wirelesstells and the cable tells

How our boys behaved by the Dardanelles.

Some thought in their hearts “Will our boys make good?”

We knew them of old and we knew they would!

Knew they would—

Knew they would;

We were mates of old and we knew they would.

They laughed and they larked and they loved likewise,

For blood is warm under Southern skies;

They knew not Pharoah (’tis understood),

And they got into scrapes, as we knew they would.

Knew they would—

Knew they would;

And they got into scrapes, as we knew they would.

They chafed in the dust of an old dead land

At the long months’ drill in the scorching sand;

But they knew in their hearts it was for their good,

And they saw it through as we knew they would.

Knew they would—

Knew they would;

And they saw it through as we knew they would.

The Coo-ee called through the Mena Camp,

And an army roared like the Ocean’s tramp

On a gale-swept beach in her wildest mood,

Till the Pyramids shook as we knew they would.

Knew they would—

Knew they would.

(And the Sphinx woke up as we knew she would.)

They were shipped like sheep when the dawn was grey;

(But their officers knew that no lambs were they).

They squatted and perched where’er they could,

And they “blanky-ed” for joy as we knew they would.

Knew they would—

Knew they would;

They “blanky-ed” for joy as we knew they would.

The sea was hell and the shore was hell,

With mine, entanglement, shrapnel and shell,

But they stormed the heights as Australians should,

And they fought and they died as we knew they would.

Knew they would—

Knew they would;

They fought and they died as we knew they would.

From the southern hills and the city lanes,

From the sandwaste lone and the Blacksoil Plains;

The youngest and strongest of England’s brood!—

They’ll win for the South as we knew they would.

Knew they would—

Knew they would;

They’ll win for the South as we knew they would.

Peddling Round the World

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Whenat first in foreign parts

Was her flag unfurled,

England was a Gipsy lass

Peddling round the world.

Sailing on the Spanish Main—

Everywhere you roam—

Peddling in the Persian Gulf

Things she’d made at home.

Peddling round the world,

Peddling round the world—

England was a Gipsy lass

Peddling round the world.

Englandneverwanted war, Not on land or sea— Other nations rising up Couldn’t let her be. England only wanted peace, And the ocean’s breath; So there came, in course of time, Queen Elizabeth. Queen Elizabeth— Queen Elizabeth— Came a plain, bad-tempered queen, Called Elizabeth.

Queen Elizabeth, she called

Drake, and Raleigh too—

Essex, Howard, and the rest

Of the pirate crew;

“See what you can do,” she said.

“England’s feeling sick—

If you don’t, I’ll hang you all!

Better do it quick.”

“Better do it quick,” she said—

“Better do it quick”;

And they knew she’d keep her word,

So they did it quick.

Drake and Raleigh sailed away—

(Only Bess they feared)

Cleared the Spanish Main and singed

The King of Spain his beard—

Singed the King of Spain his beard,

And his hair they curled.

England was a Gipsy’s love

Peddling round the world.

Peddling round the world,

Peddling round the world.

England was a Gipsy’s love

Peddling round the world.

Once again, when Cromwell came,

England wanted room;

So he lowered Holland’s tone,

Smashed the Dutchman’s broom.

Sent a message to Algiers;

Made its meaning plain—

On the way they called once more

On the King of Spain.

On the King of Spain—

On the King of Spain:

Called, to jog his memory,

On the King of Spain.

So the years went round and round,

Over hills and flats—

England was a Gipsy wife—

England had her brats;

Peddling in the China Sea,

Far from English ground;

Doing biz with Mrs. Jap—

Peddling all around.

Peddling all around—

Peddling all around;

Making friends with Mrs. Jap—

Peddling all around.

.....

When the war is past and gone,

With its blood and tears;

And the world may count upon

Peace for fifty years—

When the gory battle-flags

Round their sticks are furled—

Then you’ll see a Gipsy crone

Peddling round the world.

Peddling round the world—

Peddling round the world.

Then you’ll see a Gipsy crone

A-peddling round the world!

Shawl as old as Joseph’s coat,

Hair as white as snow,

Mind as bright as Seventeen—

Eyes still like the sloe—

Peddling in the Southern Seas—

Everywhere you roam—

And she’ll fill her baskets here

With thingswe’llmake at home. Things we’ll make at home— Things we’ll make at home— Call to fill her baskets here With things we’ll make atHOME.

Grey Wolves Grey

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The Russianmarch is soft and slow,

Through dust and heat, or slush and snow,

When the Russian skies hang grey and low

To the frontiers far where the Russians go;

And they march to-night and they march to-day

Like the grey wolves grey, like the grey wolves grey.

Nor song nor sound their track reveals,

Save the ceaseless “clock” of the waggon wheels;

But a rift in the mist shows a glint of sun

On the long, dark shape of a toiling gun;

And they strain by night and they drag by day

To a distant goal, like the grey wolves grey.

As the horses toil at the ends of trains,

And the ends of roads on the Blacksoil Plains.

And Ivan digs in the frozen clay,

And he rolls the logs a bed to lay

For a gun that’s five hundred miles away,

But as sure to come as the grey wolves grey.

He is marching on with a purpose grand,

For brother Slav in another land;

Whose tongue, perchance, he cannot understand.—

But he knows the cry from the far-away,

And he smells the blood like the grey wolves grey.

And Ivan’s wife in her den at home,

While hunger looms and his lean wolves come—

With her grey-black bread like the Darling mud,

And her tea-bricks bound with the bullock’s blood—

She shields her cubs by night and day

Like the crouching sluts of the grey wolves grey.

And I march with Ivan where’er he be,

With the foreign blood that is strong in me,

And the love and the hate that is fantasy,

Like the ghosts of a father’s memory.

With the blood that is strange to us to-day

As the strange wild blood of the grey wolves grey.

Grey wolves,

Grey wolves—

The strange wild blood of the grey wolves grey.

Interlude