One moment you'll be crouching at your gun Traversing, mowing heaps down half in fun: The next, you choke and clutch at your right breast No time to think--leave all--and off you go ... To Treasure Island where the Spice winds blow, To lovely groves of mango, quince and lime-- Breathe no goodbye, but ho, for the Red West! It's a queer time. You're charging madly at them yelling "Fag!" When somehow something gives and your feet drag. You fall and strike your head; yet feel no pain And find ... you're digging tunnels through the hay In the Big Barn, 'cause it's a rainy day. Oh springy hay, and lovely beams to climb! You're back in the old sailor suit again. It's a queer time. Or you'll be dozing safe in your dug-out-- A great roar--the trench shakes and falls about-- You're struggling, gasping, struggling, then ... hullo! Elsie comes tripping gaily down the trench, Hanky to nose--that lyddite makes a stench-- Getting her pinafore all over grime. Funny! because she died ten years ago! It's a queer time. The trouble is, things happen much too quick; Up jump the Bosches, rifles thump and click, You stagger, and the whole scene fades away: Even good Christians don't like passing straight From Tipperary or their Hymn of Hate To Alleluiah-chanting, and the chime Of golden harps ... and ... I'm not well to-day ... It's a queer time. 1915 I've watched the Seasons passing slow, so slow In the fields between La Bassée and Bethune; Primroses and the first warm day of Spring, Red poppy floods of June, August, and yellowing Autumn, so To Winter nights knee-deep in mud or snow, And you've been everything, Dear, you've been everything that I most lack In these soul-deadening trenches--pictures, books, Music, the quiet of an English wood, Beautiful comrade-looks, The narrow, bouldered mountain-track, The broad, full-bosomed ocean, green and black, And Peace, and all that's good. OVER THE BRAZIER What life to lead and where to go After the War, after the War? We'd often talked this way before But I still see the brazier glow That April night, still feel the smoke And stifling pungency of burning coke. I'd thought: "A cottage in the hills, North Wales, a cottage full of books, Pictures and brass and cosy nooks And comfortable broad window-sills, Flowers in the garden, walls all white, I'd live there peacefully, and dream and write." But Willy said "No, Home's no good Old England's quite a hopeless place I've lost all feeling for my race: But France has given me heart and blood Enough to last me all my life I'm off to Canada with my wee wife.