Page:Ballads of a Bohemian.djvu/178

176 Never knew Jim, did you? Our boy Jim? Bless you, there was the likely lad; Supple and straight and long of limb, Clean as a whistle, and just as glad. Always laughing, wasn’t he, dad? Joy, pure joy to the heart of him, And, oh, but the soothering ways he had, Jim, our Jim!

But I see him best as a tiny tot, A bonny babe, though it’s me that speaks; Laughing there in his little cot, With his sunny hair and his apple cheeks. And my! but the blue, blue eyes he’d got, And just where his wee mouth dimpled dim Such a fairy mark like a beauty spot– That was Jim.

Oh, the war, the war! How my eyes were wet! But he says: “Don’t be sorrowing, mother dear; You never knew me to fail you yet, And I’ll be back in a year, a year.” ’Twas at Mons he fell, in the first attack; For so they said, and their eyes were dim; But I laughed in their faces: “He’ll come back, Will my Jim.”

Now, we’d been wedded for twenty year, And Jim was the only one we’d had;