Forgiveness — for the Strollers

Henry Lawson, 1918

      So they write to confess, and they write in distress,
      And each letter increases the gloom;
      For I didn't let on that on different nights
      There were two bottles pinched from my room.

      Well, a mate's but a man who is fighting his fate,
      And a crook has his sorrow and grief;
      So the mate I'll forgive for the sake of a mate,
      And the thief for the sake of a thief.

      And I'll let the Gallipoli Strollers go free
      To pile up the takings (or bolt);
      All players and strollers have had claims on me
      Since the generous days of Bland Holt.


      An advertisement poem (written by Henry Lawson) for Heenzo (Hean's Essence, a cough medicine) in:
      The Argus, 23 July 1918, page 6