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
|