HORACE.

Observer, Volume XL, Issue 3, 20 September 1919, Page 57

HORACE.

(Continued.)

Sweet Phyllis mourned him for a month, Then found a new attraction; An English Johnnie out on tour, With monocle and accent pure; Her broken heart, essayed to cure, Much to her satisfaction. Meanwhile round Horace out in France, The war clouds 'roll and thicken, Deep in a cavern, weak and ill, A friendly peasant hid him, till Advancing comrades took the hill, And found him sorely stricken. Our digger from the battle front To Brockenhurst now carried; For weeks Avas nursed with tender zeal, And as \m wounds began to heal, He grew impatient to reveal The fact that he was married. Then down from London Flora came In an excited hurry; She laid her head of tousled red Beside his on the snow white bed; And there—the wondrous thing she said, Put him in quite a flurry. We see young Horace coming home, The war now nearly over; His pert vivacious red-haired bride, Chatting and laughing by his side, As slowly on the evening tide They clear the cliffs of Dover. Peace news they got when three weeks out, Or 'praps a little later; The captain fired the for'rard gun, And Flora, not to be outdone, Presented Horace with a son While crossing the Equator.

At last they see the hills of home Loom low along the water; When to the wharf the vessel steered And Flora and the kid appeared; The waiting crowd woke up and cheered New Zealand's Cockney daughter. Now settled on a fertile farm Whore seasons scarcely vary; All day bare-chested in the breeze, Young' Horace pitches golden sheaves, While Flora busy as the bees Is singing in the dairy. We've, watched young Horace making good, Through'twcirtv flighty verses, Though sparking badly at the start Great nature gave a plucky heart; The power to play a gallant part. And lautrh at life's reverses.