You're back in the old sailor suit again.
It's a queer time.

Or you'll be dozing safe in your dug-out--
Great roar--the trench shakes and falls about--
You're struggling, gasping, struggling, then ... hullo!
Elsie comes tripping gaily down the trench,
Hanky to nose--that lyddite makes a stench--
Getting her pinafore all over grime.
Funny! because she died ten years ago!
It's a queer time.

The trouble is, things happen much too quick;
Up jump the Bosches, rifles thump and click,
You stagger, and the whole scene fades away:
Even good Christians don't like passing straight
From Tipperary or their Hymn of Hate
To Alleluiah-chanting, and the chime
Of golden harps ... and ... I'm not well today ...
It's a queer time.



GOLIATH AND DAVID

('For D. C. T., killed at Fricourt, March 1916')

Once an earlier David took
Smooth pebbles from the brook:
Out between the lines he went