Private Scott of the Highlanders,
Strutted and swanked in the market-place.
Each flap and lapel set smooth in place,
Buttons polished to mirror your face,
His kilts swirled wide with an easy grace;
For this was in March ‘fifteen.
Private Scott was a simple soul;
Too prone to belief in human-kind;
When politicians their alibis whined
He prided himself on his open mind
Allowing that some were as useful behind.
(He had only turned eighteen).
Private Scott en route to France;
His best girl’s kisses were salt with tears,
But she beamed again when she heard the cheers
Raised to “our brave young volunteers”
By the party heelers and financiers;
And ‘mongst them, Joseph Keen.
Joseph Keen was a light of the kirk,
And wore his beard with a prophet’s grace;
Saintly benevolence shone from his face,
For the beard made a hirsute carapace
To hide from the world every tittle and trace,
Of acquisitive mouth and jaw.
Joseph Keen was a patriot stern;
Worked for his country night and day;
Lectured his help that their duty lay,
In standing by without let or stay,
In order that Scott, up Wipers way,
His bacon and beans might chaw.
Joseph Keen was a busy man;
If once in a while a pig long dead
Got mixed with his brothers lately bled,
Or the beans held pebbles and bits of lead
And Scott near lost every tooth in his head,
Blaming Keen was rather raw.
Joseph Keen had a few rewards;
The statesmen clamoured and called him great,
And raised him high in the chairs of state;
And Joseph told them, cannily blate,
He toiled for his country early and late;
So they made him SIR Joseph Keen.
Sir Joseph Keen, Munitions King,
A sanctity sweet to his office lent,
His profits were never extravagant,
For after all, what’s a hundred per cent,
When the end of the war means a season of Lent,
With a gross of thirty-three?
Sir Joseph, apres la guerre fini,
Sheltered himself for a rainy day;
Twenty-one million salted away
In tax-free bonds were his chief mainstay,
And only a communist could say
It was not a modest fee.
Private Scott of the Highlanders
Was nobly content with his dollar-ten,
Secure in the promise that if and when
He should be disabled, Canada then
Would secure him his place in the world of men,
By a pension to balance the score.
Sergeant Scott, acting C.S.M.,
Is seen in the market-place again;
Mangled and torn and tortured by pain
He stands and smiles while the plaudits rain,
Though the noise makes hell of a wearied brain,
And the standing wracks him sore.
Scott the Veteran dwelt in peace;
On a pension that kept for him hearth and pride
In a modest home, with a wife by his side;
And if Fame and Fortune passed him wide
He never complained, or ever decried,
Sir Joe, and his spoils of war.
Sir Joseph Keen, fore-handed man!
In twenty-nine, when the tempest blew
He said it could only be weathered through
By cutting the wages and grub of the crew,
And that he as Captain would suffer too;
And nobody called it “rot.”
Sir Joseph Keen was a careful man;
When he found his profits drop more and more
From the thirty per cent enjoyed before
To a measly four from his spoils of war
He sought for a means of securing that store
And discovered Sergeant Scott.
Veteran Scott was a patriot still;
If times of trouble in Canada meant
He must tighten his belt and mar his content,
He’d take his cut of twenty per cent,
And, damn all Bolshies, keep strict Lent;
Straight thinking Sergeant Scott!
Veteran Scott was an honest man;
He paid his bills as the bills came due;
So he just bought less, and ate less too.
But when the pension was cut in two
The outlook seemed just a trifle blue
To Sergeant Scott.
Sir Joseph Keen was a hungry man;
And bonds can’t be eaten, even if free
From the taxes that pay the annuity
Of Sergeant Scott’s sad fraternity;
And unless the interest comes steadily
They’re really not up to much.
Sir Joseph was now a powerful man;
A little hint to the jackal packs
Who, under him, govern and talk and tax,
And the word went forth that Sir Joseph lacks
The safety he craves, and to use the axe
Again on the pension of Scott.
Sergeant Scott was a valorous man;
But he could not meet his wife’s soft eyes
With the news that the worth of his sacrifice
Was now as a grateful country’s prize
Set at fifteen per, with chance of a rise
By going upon relief.
Sergeant Scott was a broken man;
He forgot that murder of self was sin,
But straight he regaled himself on a tin
Of poison for rats, and other vermin;
Departing this life without bluster or din,
But quietly, over the top.
Sir Joseph Keen is a holy man,
And the Oxford Group to his bosom drew;
But I wonder whether that poison stew
Might not be for him a fitter brew
Than for Sergeant Scott; and if Canada too
Would not be abler to worry through
Without the aid of the putrid crew
Who did for Scott.
(Burnett A. Ward)
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Based on Topics: Man Poems, World Poems, Light Poems, Mind Poems, Soul Poems, War & Peace Poems, Faces Poems, Place Poems, Kings & Queens Poems, Home Poems, Sin PoemsBased on Keywords: tittle, twenty-nine, abler, fraternity, guerre, human-kind, clamoured, twenty-one, blaming, strutted, jackal