THE SLACKER

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2651, 23 December 1915, Page 6

THE SLACKER

You can. atay if you wish, 0 waster, - Who are young and free and strong, , ■Thank God there are plenty of Britons To help the work along. There are others to battle for you, And die,' if it must.be so. So stay behind if you have the mind— There is no one to make you go. You live in a guarded couutry, Where never a danger comes, Afar from tho shriek of shrapnel, And far from the roll of drums; Yet sometimes 'mid your pleasures, Must come a sense of shame When you read in the scroll of Honour's Roll An old- companion's name. 'Oh, yes,' they will guard you safely, Those others who would not shirk, Who chose to bear in a man's own way The brunt of a man's own work; You tarry for gain or pleasure, Or a life of slothful ease: What would they do with a thing like you In the trenches overseas? So stay, my friend, if you wish to ; There is no one to make you go: Fill, if you choose, a slacker's shoes— You will wear tnem well, I know. Eat and drink and be merry— Let others fight and fall, But close your ear that you may not hear The Empire's trumpet call. But when, in God's good season, Viotory shall crown the day, And they ask you what your part was— What are you going to say? Will you like to hear the whisper That passes to and fro: "Ho was afraid, and 60 he stayed, For they couldn't make him go?' ' —Anthony Webb.