When The `Army' Prays For Watty

When the kindly hours of darkness, save for light of moon and star,     Hide the picture on the signboard over Doughty's Horse Bazaar;     When the last rose-tint is fading on the distant mulga scrub,     Then the Army prays for Watty at the entrance of his pub.     Now, I often sit at Watty's when the night is very near,     With a head that's full of jingles and the fumes of bottled beer,     For I always have a fancy that, if I am over there     When the Army prays for Watty, I'm included in the prayer.     Watty lounges in his arm-chair, in its old accustomed place,     With a fatherly expression on his round and passive face;     And his arms are clasped before him in a calm, contented way,     And he nods his head and dozes when he hears the Army pray.     And I wonder does he ponder on the distant years and dim,     Or his chances over yonder, when the Army prays for him?     Has he not a fear connected with the warm place down below,     Where, according to good Christians, all the publicans should go?     But his features give no token of a feeling in his breast,     Save of peace that is unbroken and a conscience well at rest;     And we guzzle as we guzzled long before the Army came,     And the loafers wait for `shouters' and, they get there just the same.     It would take a lot of praying, lots of thumping on the drum,     To prepare our sinful, straying, erring souls for Kingdom Come;     But I love my fellow-sinners, and I hope, upon the whole,     That the Army gets a hearing when it prays for Watty's soul.