Oh! This arid land so rough,
sand! you could eat the 'Bloody' stuff,
like salt and pepper on your food,
unrefined and coarsely rude,
embraces what, scholars call ubiquitous,
when covering every part of us,
in our nostrils, in our hair,
the sense of being everywhere,
in the morning when we rise,
the wretched stuff is in our eyes,
we clean our teeth and we find,
like as emery wheels that grind,
in our pants it chaffs and chaffs,
enough to make the Devil laugh,
between our toes it hiding mocks,
as we don our khaki socks,
in our boots it lurking too,
and in massive quantities accrue,
in the heat of day when we sweat,
we perspire in sandy rivulets,
but in better words I will attend,
comic quaint by my 'cockney' friend,
who would just curtly state
'mer china, it's a right blooming two and eight.