The Ballad of Ensign Joy

Her heaviest uncle came down
well,
And entertained, at a fair hotel,
The dregs of the coupled clans.

A CERTAIN number of
cheques accrued
To keep the wolf from the
door:
The economical Ermyntrude
Had charge of the dwindling
store,
When a Board reported her
bridegroom fit
As – some expression she didn't
permit.
And he left for the Front once
more.

HIS crowd had been climbing
the jaws of hell:
He found them in death's dog-
teeth,
With little to show but a good
deal to tell
In their fissure of smoking
heath.
There were changes – of course
– but the change in him
Was the ribbon that showed on
his tunic trim
And the tumult hidden be-
neath!

FOR all he had suffered and
seen before
Seemed nought to a husband's
care;
And the Chinese puzzle of mod-
ern war
For subtlety couldn't compare
With the delicate springs of the
complex life
To be led with a highly sensitised
wife
In a slightly rarefied air!

YET it's good to be back with
the old platoon —
"A man in a world of men"!
Each cheery dog is a henchman
boon —
Especially Sergeant Wren!
Ermyntrude couldn't endure his
name —
Considered bad language no lien
on fame,
Yet it's good to – hear it
again!

BETTER to feel the Ser-
geant's grip,
Though your fingers ache to
the bone!
Better to take the Sergeant's tip
Than to make up your mind
alone.
They can do things together, can
Wren and Joy —
The bristly bear and the beard-
less boy —
That neither could do on his
own.

BUT there's never a word
about Old Man Wren
In the screeds he scribbles
to-day —
Though he praises his N.C.O.'s
and men
In rather a pointed way.
And he rubs it in (with a knitted
brow)
That the war's as good as a pic-
nic now,
And better than any play!

HIS booby-hutch is "as safe
as the Throne,"
And he fares "like the C. – in-
Chief,"
But has purchased "a top-hole
gramophone
By way of comic relief."
(And he sighs as he hears the
men applaud,
While the Woodbine spices are
wafted abroad
With the odour of bully-beef.)