IN RESERVE.

New Zealand Tablet, 25 April 1918, Page 45

IN RESERVE.

lie . followed when duty beckoned, And, dressed in his khaki brown, The feller we hadn’t reckoned : A man yet, marched from town ; And me and his ma are sitting At night by the cottage door, While the candle bugs are flitting, And her heart and my heart are sore. We were there to God-speed his going, And the things that we felt we hid, And we smiled, so he’d, not be knowing Then we dumb in the cart and rid Where the brown road went a winding Up over the hills and home— While the tears in our eyes were blinding—- . Where the house stood in the gloam. The windows were dark to meet us, The chickens had gone to sleep, And never a voice to greet us; The barn was a sombre heap. A blotch in the gloom, a sorrow Repellent and full of fear. A shade of the coming morrow And morrows, and him not here ! lie went when his country beckoned, Went off with the khaki boys ; His ma hadn’t ever reckoned Him grown—him with all his noise— The boy wo had raised, gone to it—The war—from his mother’s lap— But I guess if ho didn’t do it I’d reach for the holdback strap! They tell mo I’m too old for fighting, That I could not keep my feet. My teeth are too poor for biting . The grub that they have to eat ; So he went to the post of danger With joyon the double quick Rut it they hurt my boy—-then, stranger, They’ll have his old dad to lick !