Page:Patriotic pieces from the Great War, Jones, 1918.djvu/183

Rh OFF DUTY

The night is full of magic, and the moonlit dewdrops glisten

Where the blossoms close in slumber and the questing bullets pass—

Where the bullets hit the level I can hear them as I listen,

Like a little cricket concert, chirping chorus in the grass.

In the dug-out by the traverse there's a candle-flame a-winking

And the fireflies on the sandbags have their torches all aflame.

As I watch them in the moonlight, sure, I cannot keep from thinking,

That the world I knew and this one carry on the very same.

Look! A gun flash to the eastward! "Cover, matey! Under cover!

Don't you know the flash of danger? You should know that signal well;

You can hear it as it's coming. There it passes; swooping over.

There's a threat of desolation in the passing of a shell."