Classic Poem

We've said good-bye to a mate of mine
Who has gone where the best men go;
O things were slack in the building line,
And his days were dull and slow.
He sharpened his tools and he passed somehow;
He's knocking up bunks on the transport now,
Where soldiers are making a joyful row—
And he's gone for the Kaiser's Mo'!
He's gone for the Kaiser's Mo'!
He's gone for the Kaiser's Mo'!
He swore that he'd bring, for every pal,
A hair of the Kaiser's Mo'!

We took him and filled him with tanglefoot
In a Sydney bar we knew,
And many a gift in his pockets we put,
Though our funds are always low;
But the Boss kept murmuring, “Don't explain,”
As he filled our glasses again and again,
And our Old Mate swore, come shine come rain,
That he'd bring us the Kaiser's Mo'!

His wife ran away with a doo-dah man
Some three or four years ago;
Her brain was built on the Prussian plan,
So he's after the Kaiser's Mo'.
(And here, my children, I'd like to say
That every ill in the world today—
In a more or less plain, or roundabout, way—
May be traced to the Kaiser's Mo';
Or to somebody else's Mo'.)

Down to the shipping in single file
He marched with his comrades slow—
Their nose-bags bulging in good old style,
(En route for the Kaiser's Mo'.)
Our girls kissed him in a public place—
Every inch of his ugly face,
And none of us felt the least disgrace,
When he went for the Kaiser's Mo'.

We said good-bye on the transport's deck,
When the boat was ready to go,
With my best girl's arms round his scrawny neck
(Ere he sailed for the Kaiser's Mo').
She is five-foot-ten and her name is Sal,
And her sympathy is po-et-i-cal:
He'd swore he'd post her, and every pal,
A hair of the Kaiser's Mo'.

His heart was white as the tallest Alp,
But he shaved it all but his Mo';
He was always after somebody's scalp,
So, of course, he was doomed to go.
But the bullets will flatten on Charley's face,
And his case was always the hardest case,
So I fully expect in a twelve-month space
A hair of the Kaiser's Mo';
(Or of somebody else's Mo'.)