Now he has got the chance of his life,
    The chance of earning glorious scars,
  And I picture him scouring a land of strife,
    Crouching over his handle-bars,
  His open exhaust, with its roar and stench,
  Like a Maxim gun in a British trench.

  Lad, when we met in that country lane
    Neither foresaw the days to come,
  But I know that if ever we meet again
    My heart will throb to your engine’s hum,
  And to-day, as I read, I catch my breath
  At the thought of your ride through the hail of death!

  But to you it is just a glorious lark;
    Scorn of danger is still your creed. 
  As you open her out and advance your spark
    And humour the throttle to get more speed,
  Life has only one end for you,
  To carry your priceless message through!

BURGOMASTER MAX
[Sidenote:  H.B.]

  Our children will sing with delight for all time
    Of the Briton, the French, and the Russian,
  But most of the man who with humour sublime
    Pulled the goose-stepping leg of the Prussian.

NEWS FROM THE FRONT
[Sidenote:  C.E.B. in the “Evening News"]

This so-remarkable letter on-a-battlefield-up-picked the real feeling of the British private soldier demonstrates.  Its publication by the Berlin Official News Bureau is authorised.  The words parenthesised are of some obscurity, but apparently are exclamations of a disgustful kind.

  Our sojers they was weepin’
    The night we went away
  For some one whispered we was off
    The Germans for to slay. 
  To shoot them cultured Bosches
    Would make a Briton shrink
  And so our ’earts was sad to go
    (I don’t think).

  An’ when we met them blighters
    Of course we turned and ran,
  An’ Tubby French ’e shouted out
    “All save theirselves as can”;
  An’ when the big Jack Johnsons banged
    We didn’t cheer and larf
  An’ pump the Bosches full o’ lead
    (No, not ’arf).

  An’ w’en our foes retreated
    We knowed we couldn’t win
  For they was out, that artful like,
    To lure us to Berlin. 
  But touch that ’ome of culture? 
    We’d rather far be shot;
  We simply worship Kaiser Bill
    (P’raps, p’raps not).

FALL IN!
[Sidenote:  H.B.]

  What will you lack, sonny, what will you lack
    When the girls line up the street,
  Shouting their love to the lads come back
    From the foe they rushed to beat? 
  Will you send a strangled cheer to the sky
    And grin till your cheeks are red? 
  But what will you lack when your mates go by
    With a girl who cuts you dead?

  Where will you look, sonny, where will you look
    When your children yet to be
  Clamour to learn of the part you took
    In the War that kept men free? 
  Will you say it was naught to you if France
    Stood up to her foe or bunked? 
  But where will you look when they give the glance
    That tells you they know you funked?