Ho Lor, it isn’t a dream,
        It’s just as it used to be, every bit;
      Same old whistle and same old bang,
        And me to stay ’ere till I’m ’it.

  ’Twas up by Loos I got me first;
    I just dropped gently, crawled a yard
  And rested sickish, with a thirst—­
    The ’eat, I thought, and smoking ’ard ... 
  Then someone offers me a drink,
    What poets call “the cooling draft,”
  And seeing ’im I done a think: 
    “Blighty,” I thinks—­and laughed.

  I’m not a soldier natural,
    No more than most of us to-day;
  I runs a business with a pal
    (Meaning the Missis) Fulham way;
  Greengrocery—­the cabbages
    And fruit and things I take meself,
  And she has daffs and crocuses
    A-smiling on a shelf.

  “Blighty,” I thinks.  The doctor knows;
    ’E talks of punctured damn-the-things. 
  It’s me for Blighty.  Down I goes;
    I ain’t a singer, but I sings;
  “Oh, ’oo goes ’ome?” I sort of ’ums;
    “Oh, ’oo’s for dear old England’s shores?”
  And by-and-by Southampton comes—­
   “Blighty!” I says and roars.

  I s’pose I thort I done my bit;
    I s’pose I thort the War would stop;
  I saw myself a-getting fit
    With Missis at the little shop;
  The same like as it used to be,
    The same old markets, same old crowd. 
  The same old marrers, same old me,
    But ’er as proud as proud....

  The regiment is where it was,
    I’m in the same old ninth platoon;
  New faces most, and keen becos
    They ’ope the thing is ending soon;
  I ain’t complaining, mind, but still,
    When later on some newish bloke
  Stops one and laughs, “A blighty, Bill,”
    I’ll wonder, “Where’s the joke?”

  Same old trenches, same old view,
    Same old rats and just as tame,
  Same old dug-outs, nothing new,
    Same old smell, the very same,
  Same old bodies out in front,
    Same old strafe from 2 till 4,
  Same old scratching, same old ’unt,
    Same old bloody War.

Ho Lor, it isn’t a dream,
It’s just as it used to be, every bit;
Same old whistle and same old bang
And me out again to be ’it.
A.A.M.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  THE NEW POSTER.]

* * * * *

“The important now development in the cotton situation is that the 1/2
Prime Minister has consented to receive a deputation.”—­Manchester
Guardian.

All the same, he refused to adopt a 1/2 measure.

* * * * *

    “The history of the development of the 3/4eppelin is well-known.”—­Daily
    Chronicle.

Particularly since our airmen ceased to give it any quarter.