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The Diary Pages 44-51 - Poetry
let him live
As long as the flowers thier per
bory
so long I'd let the Kaiser live,
vigil
keep,
live and live for a million years,
sweep,
with nothing to drink but Belgium
with nothing to quench his thirst,
all
the years
but the salted brim of a Scotchman's
ears,
I would let him live on a dinner dim,
served from silver on a goldin set of sun,
served with things both danty moaning wild,
served with ever thing but some and child,
I would make him a bed of from over the sea,
with costly linens too lie be- be,
with covers of down, and filets sweet;
and downing pillows piled in place, the silvery sands
yet when to its comforts he would eager hands,
it would stink with the rot
and blood & brains and bombs of to hell.
should cover him smother him, the wave swept shore,
his pillows should cling with rise no more. |
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No man's land," the, where the Irish
fell
I'd start the Kaiser a private hell
I'd Jab him, stab him, give him gas.
And in each wound I'd pour ground glass,
I'd march him out where the brave boys died,
Out past the lads he crucified,
In the fearful gloom of his living tomb
There is one thing I have before I was through
I'd make him sign and striving manner
The wonderful words of the star Spangled Banner
Roy Bailey |
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Fags
When the fog is making ice cream on the morrow of your bones
When you're shaking like a jelly and your feet are dead as
stones
When your clothes & boots & blankets & your rifle
& kit,
Are soaked from Hell to breakfast and the dugout where your sit
Is leaking like a basket and upon the muddy floor
The water lies in filthy pools six inches deep or more
Tho life seem cold and miserable and all the world is wet,
You'll always get thro' somehow if you've got a cigarette.
When you're lying in a listening post way out beyond the wires
While a blasted Hun, behind a gun is doing rapid fire,
When the bullets whine above your head, and sputter on the
ground
When your eyes are strained for every move, your ears for ever
sound
You'd bet your life a Hun patrol is prowling somewhere near;
A shive runs along your back, that is very much like fear;
you'll stick it to the finish but I'll make a little bet,
you'd feel a whole lot better if you had a cigarette. |
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Fags
When Fritz is starting something he & his guns are on the
bust,
When the parapet goes up in chunks & settles down in dust,
When the roly-poly jam jar comes a wobbling through the air,
Til it lands upon a dugout - and the dug out isn't as there;
When the air is full of dust & smoke and scraps of steel,
and noise
And your nerves are all a tremble & your brains are all a
fret.
And you think your book for golden crowns and other heavenly
joys
It is'nt half so hapless if you've got a cigarette.
When you're waiting for the whistle & your foot is on the
step
You bluff yourself it's lots of fun and all the time you hep.
To the fact that you may stop one for you've gone a dozen feet.
And you wonder what it feels like and your thoughts are far
from sweet.
Then you think of a little grave with RIP on top
And you know you've got to go across - altho you'd like to stop.
When your backbone is limp as water and you're bathed in ice
sweat
Why you'll feel a lot more cheerful if you puff a cigarette. |
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fags
Then you stop a good one, and the stretcher bearer came
and patch you up with strings & splints & bandages & gum
When you think you've got a million wounds & fifty thousand breaks.
And your bodys just a blasted sack, packed full of pains & aches;
Then you feel as weak as Belgium beer helpless as a pup.
But you know you're not down & out, that lines worth living yet,
When some old war wise Red Cross guy slips you a cigarette
We can do without Mac Conachies and bully & hard tack to,
When Fritz's curtain fire keeps the ration parties back;
We can do without our great coat and our socks & shirt & shoes,
We might almost tho I'd doubt it get along without are booze;
We can do without 8 PM & "military law"
We can beat the ancient Isralites at making brick and straw
We can do without a lot of things and still win out you bet
But I'd hate to think of soldiering without a cigarette |
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Don't forget to that he is lonesome
On a starlit balmy evening
When the lilacs scent the air
Then your sweetheart you are squeezing
Both so happy free from care
Now the moon is slowly creeping
From behind the wooded hill;
and the streams of yellow, peeping
Through the leaves that are so still
Life to you is a dream of pleasure
Nothing else could be so fair;
Not even the richest treasure,
Could make this couple happier
As you sit there both are dreaming
Of your "new life" to come soon
Then you look at the moonbeams streaming
From that bright and silvery moon |
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In some other land it is shining,
Just the same as it is there;
Only it is slowly creeping
Behind the hill so battle scarred
This ghostly scene is very lonely
It is quite a different one;
Instead of lovers you find standing,
A "Sammie" looking down his gun
This gun is now his best companion,
and he gives it his greatest care;
He trust that it will now protect him,
That he may return to her so fair
There he stands, Waiting, Watching,
thro the sharp entangled wire;
Ready for instant action,
Should the enemy appear, |
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He is on his post so still and ghostly,
and his thoughts drifted back to "home,"
He is thinking of his loved ones,
and the girl he called his own,
Oh! how perfectly he remembers,
Of the evening when they stood;
Looking on that same old moon
That is creeping behind the wood,
Do you ever stop to wonder,
About the boy so far away?
Do you realize that he is lonely
To be with her just one more day.
Remember!
His thots and your thots,
Are the same as one.
And when you kiss her give a thot,
To the "Boys" behind the gun!
R. C. Clements |
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