Hello, Soldier!

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Title: 'Hello, Soldier!'
Khaki Verse
Author: Edward Dyson
Release Date: October 19, 2005 [EBook #16904]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
? START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 'HELLO, SOLDIER!' ***
Produced by Peter O'Connell
"Hello, Soldier!"?Khaki Verse
by Edward Dyson
Many of these verse were originally?printed in the "Bulletin," others in "Punch,"?"The Leader" and Melbourne "Herald."?Some few are now published for the first time.
The paper famine leaving me no option?but to print on peculiar paper, not wholly?prohibitive or to defer the publication of my?verses for an unknown period, the natural?longing of a parent to parade his "well begotten"?prevails. If my book is unusual and?bizarre from a craftman's point of view,?I plead the unusual times and extraordinary?conditions. Of these times and conditions.?I hope "Hello Soldier" is in some measure?characteriastic.--Edward Dyson.
AUSTRALIA.
AUSTRALIA, my native land,
A stirring whisper in your ear--?'Tis time for you to understand
Your rating now is A1, dear.?You've done some rousing things of late.?That lift you from the simple state?In which you chose to vegetate.
The persons so superior,
Whose patronage no more endures,?Now have to fire a salvo for
The glory that is fairly yours.?At length you need no sort of crutch,?You stand alone, you're voted "much"--?Get busy and behave as such.
No man from Oskosh, or from Hull,
Or any other chosen place?Can rise with a distended skull,
And cast aspersions in your face.?You're given all the world to know?Your proper standing as a foe,?And hats are off, and rightly so.
You furnished heroes for the fray,
Your sterling merit's widely blown?To all men's satisfaction say,
Now have you proved it to your own??Now have you strength to stand and shine?In your own light and say, "Divine?The thing is that I do. It's mine!"
The cannon's stroke throws customs down
The black and bottomless abyss,?And quaking are the gilded crown
And palsied feet of prejudice.?The guns have killed, but it is true?They bring to life things good and new.?God grant they have awakened you!
My ears are greedy for the toast
Of confidence before our guest,?The loyal song, the manly boast
Your splendid faith to manifest.?In works of art and livelihood?Shirk not the creed, "What's ours is good,"?Dread not to have it understood.
Australia, lift your royal brow,
And have the courage of our pride,?Audacity becomes you now,
Be splendidly self-satisfied,?No land from lowliness and dearth?Has won to eminence on earth?That was not conscious of its worth.
CONTENTS
AUSTRALIA?BILLY KHAKI?AS THE TROOPS WENT THROUGH?MARSHAL NEIGH V.C.?IN HOSPITAL?SISTER ANN?BRICKS?MUD?MICKIE MOLLYNOO?JAM?WEEPING WILLIE?BILLJIM?THE CRUSADERS?PEACE, BLESSED PEACE?THE HAPPY GARDENERS?THE GERM?JOEY'S JOB?THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND ME?HOW HERMAN WON THE CROSS?WHEN TOMMY CAME MARCHING HOME?HELLO, SOLDIER!?THE MORALIST?REPAIRED?OUT OF KHAKI?THE SINGLE-HANDED TEAM?BATTLE PASSES?THE LETTERS OF THE DEAD?BULLETS?UNREDEEMED?THE LIVING PICTURE?THE IMMORTAL STRAIN?THE UNBORN?THE COMMON MEN?THE CHURCH BELLS?THE YOUNG LIEUTENANT?THE ONE AT HOME?THE HAPLESS ARMY
BILLY KHAKI
MARCHING somewhat out of order
when the band is cock-a-hoop,?There's a lilting kind of magic in the swagger
of the troop,?Swinging all aboard the steamer with her
nose toward the sea.?What is calling, Billy Khaki, that you're footing
it so free?
Though his lines are none too level,
And he lacks a bit of style.?And he's swanking like the devil
Where the women wave and smile,?He will answer with a rifle
Trim and true from stock to bore,?Where the comrades crouch and stifle
In the reeking pit of war.
What is calling, Billy Khaki? There is
thunder down the sky,?And the merry magpie bugle splits the morning
with its cry,?While your feet are beating rhythms up the
dusty hills and down,?And the drums are all a-talking in the hollow
of the town.
Billy Khaki, is't the splendor of the song the
kiddies sing,?Or the whipping of the flags aloft that sets
your heart a-swing??Is't the cheering like a paean of the tossing,
teeming crowds,?Or the boom of distant cannon flatly bumping
on the clouds ?
What's calling, calling, Billy? 'Tis the rattle
far away?Of the cavalry at gallop and artillery in play;?'Tis the great gun's fierce concussion, and the
smell of seven hells?When the long ranks go to pieces in the
sneezing of the shells.
But your eyes are laughing, Billy, and a
ribald song you sing,?While the old men sit and tell us war it is a
ghastly thing,?When the swift machines are busy and the
grim, squat fortress nocks?At your bolts as vain as eggs of gulls that spatter on the rocks.
When the horses sweep upon you to complete
a sudden rout,?Or in fire and smoke and fury some brave
regiment goes out,?War is cruel, Bill, and ugly. But full well
you know the rest,?Yet your heart is for the battle, and your face
is to the west.
For if war is beastly, Billy, you can picture
something worse--?There's the wrecking of an empire, and its
broken people's curse;?There are nations reft of freedom, and of hope
and kindly mirth,?And the shadow of an evil