Page:A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919.djvu/227

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There are little boys at Nottingham

Who never heard a gun;

There are silly fools at Nottingham

Who think we're here for fun.

When—

There are crocuses at Nottingham!

Young crocus buds at Nottingham!

Thousands of buds at Nottingham

Ungathered by the Hun.

But here we trample down the grass

Into a purple slime;

There lives no tree to give the birds

House room in pairing-time.

We live in holes, like cellar rats,

But through the noise and smell

I often see those crocuses

Of which the people tell.

Why!

There are crocuses at Nottingham!

Bright crocuses at Nottingham!

Real crocuses at Nottingham!

Because we're here in Hell. Maud Anna Bell

E was lounging over the stubble on a slope of St. Catherine's Hill,

While the old swine grubbed contented, and the young pigs took their fill

Of the sweet corn grains that had fallen, and he found me under the hedge,

Looking up to the tower-crowned summit and down far over the ledge