Yes, Jim hez gone--ye didn't know?
He's fightin' at the front.
It's him as bears 'his country's hopes'.
An' me as bears the brunt.
Wen war bruk out Jim 'lowed he'd go--
He allus loved a scrap--
Ye see, the home warn't jest the place
Fer sech a lively chap.
O' course, the work seems ruther hard;
The kids is ruther small--
It ain't that I am sore at Jim,
I envy him--that's all.
He doesn't know what he's about
An' cares still less, does Jim...
With all his loose an' roarin' ways
I wisht that I was him.
It makes him glad an' drunken-like
That music an' the smoke;
An' w'en they shout, the whole thing seems
A picnic an' a joke.
Oh, yellin' puts a heart in ye,
An' stren'th into yer blows--
I wisht that I could hears those cheers
Washin' the neighbors clo'es...
It's funny how some things work out--
Life is so strange, Lord love us--
Here am I, workin' night an' day
To keep a roof above us;
An' Jim is somewhere in the south,
An' Jim ain't really bad,
A-runnin' round an' raisin' Cain,
An' stabbin' some kid's dad.
But that's w'at men are made for--eh?
W'at else is there for me
But workin' on till Jim comes home,
Sick of his bloody spree.