She’s sweet ‘n’ cool, her touch is dew—­
   Wet lilies on yer brow. 
(Jist ’ark et me what never knew
   Of lilies up to now). 
She fits your case in ’arf a wink,
   ‘N’ knows how, why, ‘n’ where. 
If you are five days gone in drink,
N’ hoverin’ on perdition’s brink,
   It is her brother there. 
   God how pain will take a man, and
     He has spoke with her!

I dunno if she ever sleeps
   Ten minutes at a stretch. 
A dozen times a night she creeps
   To soothe a screamin’ wretch
Who has a tiger-headed Hun
   A-gnawin’ at his chest. 
‘N’ when the long, ’ard flght is won,
‘N’ he is still ‘n’ nearly done,
   She smiles down on his rest,
   ‘N’ minds me of a mother with a baby at her
     breast.

The curly kid we cuddled when
   There was no splendid row
(It seemed a little matter then,
   But feels so wondrous now). 
It’s part of her.  She’s Joan iv Ark,
   Flo Nightingale, all fair
‘N’ dinkum dames who’ve made their mark
If she comes tip-toe in the dark,
   We blighters feel her there. 
   The whole pack perks up like a bird, ‘n’
     sorter takes the air.

She chats you in a ’Ighland botch;
   But if our Sis saw fit
To pitch Hindoo instead of Scotch
   I’d get the hang of it,
Because her heart it is that talks
   What now is plain to me. 
At war where bloody murder stalks,
‘N’ Nick his hottest samples hawks. 
   I have been given to see
   What simple human kindness is, what
     brotherhood may be.

BRICKS.

Dear Ned, I now take up my pen to write
     you these few lines,
And hopin’ how they find you fit.  Gorbli’,
     it seems an age
Since Jumbo ducked the Port, ‘n’ drilled ‘n’
     polished to the nines,
He walked his pork on Collins like a hero off
     the stage,
Then hiked a rifle ‘cross the sea this bleedin’
     war to wage.

The things what’s ’appened lately calls to
     Jumbo’s mind that day
Our push took on the Peewee pack, ‘n’
     belted out their lard,
With twenty cops to top it off.  But now I’m
     stowed away,
A bullet in me gizzard where I took it good
     and hard,
A-dealin’-stoush ‘n’ mullock to the Prussian
     flamin’ Guard.

At Bullcoor mortal charnce had dumped a
     mutton-truck of us
From good ole Port ker-flummox where we
     didn’t orter be,
All in a ’elpless hole-the Pug, Bill Carkeek,
     Son, ‘n’ Gus,
Don, Steve, ‘n’ Jack, ‘n’ seven more, ‘n’, as
     it ’appens, me,
With nothin’ in since breakfast, ‘n’ a week
     to go for tea.

Worked loose from Caddy’s bunch, we went
     it gay until we found
We’d took to ‘arf the ragin’ German Hempire
     on our own. 
Then down we went so ’umble, with our noses
     in the ground,
Takin’ cover in the rubble.  If a German head
     was shown
It was fare-the-well to Herman with a bullet
     through the bone.