Page:A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919.djvu/202

 202

S I lay in the trenches

Under the Hunter's Moon,

My mind ran to the lenches

Cut in a Wiltshire down.

I saw their long black shadows,

The beeches in the lane,

The grey church in the meadows

And my white cottage—plain.

Thinks I, the down lies dreaming

Under that hot moon's eye,

Which sees the shells fly screaming

And men and horses die.

And what makes she, I wonder,

Of the horror and the blood,

And what's her luck, to sunder

The evil from the good?

'Twas more than I could compass,

For how was I to think

With such infernal rumpus

In such a blasted stink?

But here's a thought to tally

With t'other. That moon sees

A shrouded German valley

With woods and ghostly trees.

And maybe there's a river

As we have got at home

With poplar-trees aquiver

And clots of whirling foam.

And over there some fellow,

A German and a foe,

Whose gills are turning yellow

As sure as mine are so,