Page:Poems of the Great War - Cunliffe.djvu/302

 276 A. STODART WALKER

��IN A SLUM

I NEVER heard him speak a kindly word, My tears were answered with a savage oath,

He drank what we could very ill afford, He was a bully and a drunkard both.

He broke my body as he broke my soul, I shivered when I heard his stumbling feet ;

At times the very household "sticks" he stole, To pawn and pay for women in the street.

I stitched and labored for his children's bread, Fourpence a shirt the sweated wage I earned.

Save when the doctor forced me to my bed, Where thrice a mother's travail I had learned.

The day he left me for the barrack square, He swore we women were no earthly use

For anything but filling men with care,

His parting words were words of foul abuse.

And now they tell me of a hero's death,

How one to twelve he held the Huns at bay,

And won the Cross, yet with his passing breath He bade the chaplain "take his face away."

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