He was the fourth his mother bore,
The room was ten by twelve,
His share was sixty cubic feet
In which to build himself.
He sat and learned his letters
With forty in a room,
And sixty cubic feet of draught
The Council lent to him.
At fourteen he must earn a wage,
He went to pit from school,
In sixty feet of dust and gas
He lay and hacked the coal.
At twenty-two they told him
His freedom was at stake
He left his sixty cubic feet,
A soldier for to make.
He slept with seven others,
The tent was pitched in clay,
The rain ran down the hillside
And drenched them night and day.
He lay and coughed his heart out
In sixty feet of damp.
At last when he could hardly stand
They marched him out of camp.
They brought him from hospital,
They brought him home alone,
In sixty cubic feet of deal
That he could call his own.
They buried him with honour,
The bugler blew Retreat,
And now he claims of English earth
Some sixty cubic feet.