Unpublished Holograph First World War Poem (signed 'H W Aubrey') by English army officer Captain Henry Wentworth Windsor Aubrey [H. W. Aubrey], titled 'To our offspring - America' ('You're blood of our blood, & bone of our bone').

Henry Wentworth Windsor Aubrey was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the Dorset Regiment Militia on 21 April 1875, and resigned his commission three years later. He qualified as a Doctor in 1885 and practiced in Clifton, where he was a keen cricketer and golfer. During the First World War he served in the RAMC, reaching the rank of Temporary Captain (Home) on 1 December 1917. 2pp., 8vo. In good condition, on lightly-aged paper, with a couple of minor water stains to one corner. The poem is 32 lines long, divided into eight four-line stanzas, the first of which reads: 'You're blood of our blood, & bone of our bone, | For child & its parent, though twain, are but one. | T'was the soul of the sire; in heart of the son, | That levelled at Britain the patricide's gun.' The last stanza contains a reference to 'Allah'; whether because Aubrey was a Muslim, or because the scansion demanded it, is unclear (although the fact that the author enjoins the 'Sons of Freedom' to drink 'the wine of success' suggests the latter). It reads: 'Drink deep! Drink ye deep of the wine of success! | With all Heaven's blessings may great Allah bless | His warriors battling, & those 'neath the sod. | Uphold them! Protect them! and keep them, Oh God.'