extremely artistic nevertobeextinguished fla
-me of the(very prettily indeed)arra-
nged souvenir of the in spite of himself fa
-mous soldier minus his na-
me(so as not to hurt the perspective of the(hei
-nous thought)otherwise immaculately tabulated vicinity)invei-
gles a few mildly curious rai
-ned on people(both male and female
created He
then, And every beast of the field
III
“next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims’ and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn’s early my
country ’tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voices of liberty be mute?”
He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water
IV
it’s jolly
odd what pops into
your jolly tete when the
jolly shells begin dropping jolly fast you
hear the rrmp and
then nearerandnearerandNEARER
and before
you can
!
& we’re
NOT
(oh--
--i say
that’s jolly odd
old thing, jolly
odd, jolly
jolly odd isn’t
it jolly odd.
V
look at this)
a 75 done
this nobody would
have believed
would they no
kidding this was my particular
pal
funny aint
it we was
buddies
i used to
know
him lift the
poor cuss
tenderly this side up handle
with care
fragile
and send him home
to his old mother in
a new nice pine box
(collect
VI
first Jock he
was kilt a handsome
man and James and
next let me
see yes Will that was
cleverest
he was kilt and my youngest
boy was kilt last with
the big eyes i loved like you can’t
imagine Harry was o
god kilt he was kilt everybody was kilt
they called them the kilties
VII
lis
-ten
you know what i mean when
the first guy drops you know
everybody feels sick or
when they throw in a few gas
and the oh baby shrapnel
or my feet getting dim freezing or
up to your you know what in water or
with the bugs crawling right all up
all everywhere over you all me everyone
that’s been there knows what
i mean a god damned lot of
people don’t and never
never
will know,
they don’t want
to
no
VIII
come, gaze with me upon this dome
of many coloured glass, and see
his mother’s pride, his father’s joy,
unto whom duty whispers low
“thou must!” and who replies “I can!”
--yon clean upstanding well dressed boy
that with his peers full oft hath quaffed
the wine of life and found it sweet--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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