(The Wounded Canadian Speaks) My leg? It’s off at the knee. Do I miss it? Well, some. You se… I’ve had it since I was born; And lately a devilish corn.
Before the florid portico I watched the gamblers come and go… While by me on a bench there sat A female in a faded hat; A shabby, shrinking, crumpled crea…
You ask me what I call Success — It is, I wonder, Happiness? It is not wealth, it is not fame, Nor rank, nor power nor honoured n… It is not triumph in the Arts —
To—day within a grog—shop near I saw a newly captured linnet, Who beat against his cage in fear, And fell exhausted every minute; And when I asked the fellow there
I’m just an ordinary chap Who comes home to his tea, And mostly I don’t care a rap What people think of me; I do my job and take my pay,
It’s good the great green earth to… Where sights of awe the soul inspi… But oh, it’s best, the coming home… The crackle of one’s own hearth—fi… You’ve hob—nobbed with the solemn…
So often in the mid of night I wake me in my bed With utter panic of affright To find my feet are dead; And pace the floor to easy my pain
I’ve often wondered why Old chaps who choose to die In evil passes, Before themselves they slay, Invariably they
The Judgement The Judge looked down, his face w… He scratched his ear; The gangster’s moll looked up at h… With eyes of fear.
For failure I was well equipped And should have come to grief, By atavism grimly gripped, A fool beyond belief. But lo! the Lord was good to me,
Said he: “I’ll dive deep in the P… And write a book of direful days When summer skies were overcast With smoke of humble hearths ablaz… When War was rampant in the land,
To tribulations of mankind Dame Nature is indifferent; To human sorrow she is blind, And deaf to human discontent. Mid fear and fratricidal fray,
If on water and sweet bread Seven years I’ll add to life, For me will no blood be shed, No lamb know the evil knife; Excellently will I dine
Full well I trow that when I die Down drops the curtain; Another show is all my eye And Betty Martin. I know the score, and with a smile
Folk ask if I’m alive, Most think I’m not; Yet gaily I contrive To till my plot. The world its way can go,