Page:Poems of the Great War - Cunliffe.djvu/30

 RICHARD ALDINGTON

��Be trained, fitted with a uniform and a gun,

Say good-bye to your girl.

And go off to the front

WhistHng, " It's a long way to Tipperary."

It's good to march forty miles a day,

Carrying ninety-one pounds on your back,

To eat good coarse food, get blistered, tired out,

wounded, Thirst, starve, fight like a devil {i.e., like you an' me, Jonathan), With the Maxims zip-zipping And the shrapnel squealing. And the howitzers rumbling like the traffic In Picca-

dilly.

Civilization ? —

Jonathan, if you could hear them

Whistling the Marseillaise or Marching Through

Georgia, You'd want to go too. Twenty thousand a day, Jonathan ! Perhaps you're more civilized just now than we are. Perhaps we've only forgotten civilization for a

moment. Perhaps we're really fighting for peace. And after all it will be more fun afterwards — More fun for the poets and the painters — When the cheering's all over

�� �