“Soldier, soldier come from the wars,
I’ll up an’ tend to my true love!”
“’E’s lying on the dead with a bullet
through ’is ’ead,
An’ you’d best go look for a new love.”
“Soldier, soldier come from the wars,
I’ll down an’ die with my true love!”
“The pit we dug’ll ’ide ‘im
an’ the twenty men beside ’im—
An’ you’d best go look for a new love.”
“Soldier, soldier come from the wars,
Do you bring no sign from my true love?”
“I bring a lock of ’air that ’e
allus used to wear,
An’ you’d best go look for a new love.”
“Soldier, soldier come from the wars,
O then I know it’s true I’ve lost my true
love!”
“An’ I tell you truth again—when
you’ve lost the feel o’ pain
You’d best take me for your true love.”
True love! New love!
Best take ’im for a
new love,
The dead they cannot rise,
an’ you’d better dry your eyes,
An’ you’d best
take ’im for your true love.
Smokin’ my pipe on the mountings,
sniffin’
the mornin’ cool,
I walks in my old brown gaiters
along
o’ my old brown mule,
With seventy gunners be’ind me,
an’
never a beggar forgets
It’s only the pick of the Army
that
handles the dear little pets—’Tss!
’Tss!
For you all love the screw-guns—the
screw-guns they all love you!
So when we call round with
a few guns,
o’
course you will know what to do—hoo! hoo!
Jest send in your Chief an’
surrender—
it’s
worse if you fights or you runs:
You can go where you please,
you can skid up the trees,
but
you don’t get away from the guns!
They sends us along where the roads are,
but
mostly we goes where they ain’t:
We’d climb up the side of a sign-board
an’
trust to the stick o’ the paint:
We’ve chivied the Naga an’ Looshai,
we’ve
give the Afreedeeman fits,
For we fancies ourselves at two thousand,
we
guns that are built in two bits—’Tss!
’Tss!
For you all love the screw-guns
. . .
If a man doesn’t work, why, we drills ’im
an’
teaches ’im ’ow to behave;
If a beggar can’t march, why, we kills ’im
an’
rattles ’im into ’is grave.
You’ve got to stand up to our business
an’
spring without snatchin’ or fuss.
D’you say that you sweat with the field-guns?
By
God, you must lather with us—’Tss!
’Tss!
For you all love the screw-guns
. . .
The eagles is screamin’ around us,
the
river’s a-moanin’ below,
We’re clear o’ the pine an’ the
oak-scrub,
we’re
out on the rocks an’ the snow,
An’ the wind is as thin as a whip-lash
what
carries away to the plains
The rattle an’ stamp o’ the lead-mules—
the
jinglety-jink o’ the chains—’Tss!
’Tss!
For you all love the screw-guns
. . .
