My Army, O, My Army! and Other Songs by Henry Lawson

THEY SAY, in all kindness, I'm out of the hunt-- Too old and too deaf to be sent to the Front. A scribbler of stories, a maker of songs, To the fireside and armchair my valour belongs! Yet in campaigns all hopeless, in bitterest strife, I have been at the Front all the days of my life.

Oh, your girl feels a princess, your people are proud, As you march down the street, 'midst the cheers of the crowd; And the Nation's behind you and cloudless your sky, And you come back to Honour, or gloriously die; While for each thing that brightens, and each thing that cheers, I have starved in the trenches these forty long years.