Harried and pestered by the 'Kaiser's spawn.'

And, baffled from his gun-pits far away,
Low-down, well south, an angry foe doth roar,
He opens out again upon another day
And rakes the slope with shrapnel as before.
But only working parties on the top are found,
The rest, save A.M.C., are underground.

Strange sights are seen upon that battle-ground,
But stranger still are unearthed from below;
Here many supermen may now be found,
Just watch those stretcher-bearers where _they_ go,
And see those parties bearing food and drink,
Past all those blizzard shells--then stand and think!

But one poor shell-crazed loon roamed far and wide;
Sweat-grimed, wild-eyed, and now bereft of all.
'Me mates? W'ere is my mates?' he plaintive cried,
'They's in that 'ole with ME when IT did fall.'
We took him to three huddled heaps near by,
But he roamed on as tho' he wished to die.

And as the sun's great light bursts o'er the scene,
_La Petit Douve_, one-time a sparkling stream,
Now sluggish slides, red-tinted, she has been
Past horrors thro' the night and _did not dream_.
For many days she'll, silent, strive to bear
Such human wreckage down a path once fair.