````See me safe through ..." |THEY talk--and he writhes `````--"of our spirit out here, ````Our valour and all the rest! ````There's my poor, lonely, delicate `````dear, ````As brave as the very best! ````We stand or fall in a cheery `````crowd, ````And yet how often we grouse `````aloud! ````She faces _that_ with a jest!" |HE has had no sleep for a day `````and a night; ````He has written her half a `````ream; ````He has Iain him down to wait for `````the light, ````And at last come sleep--and a `````dream. ````He's hopping on sticks up the `````studio stair: ````A telegraph-boy is waiting there, ````And--that is his darling's `````scream! |HE picks her up in a tender `````storm-- ````But how does it come to pass ````That he cannot see his reflected `````form ````With hers in the studio glass? ````"What's wrong with that mir- `````ror?"' he cries. ````But only the Sergeant's voice `````replies: ````"Wake up, Sir! The Gas-- `````the Gas!" |IS it a part of the dream of `````dread? ````What are the men about? ````Each one sticking a haunted `````head ````Into a spectral clout! ````Funny, the dearth of gibe and `````joke, ````When each one looks like a pig `````in a poke, ````Not omitting the snout! |THERE'S your mask, Sir! No `````time to lose!" ````Ugh, what a gallows shape! ````Partly white cap, and partly `````noose! ````Somebody ties the tape. ````Goggles of sorts, it seems, inset: ````Cock them over the parapet, ````Study the battlescape. |ENSIGN JOY'S in the second `````line-- ````And more than a bit cut off; ````A furlong or so down a green `````incline ````The fire-trench curls in the `````trough. ````Joy cannot see it--it's in the bed ````Of a river of poison that brims `````instead. ````He can only hear--a cough! |NOTHING to do for the ````Companies there-- ````Nothing but waiting now, ````While the Gas rolls up on the `````balmy air, ````And a small bird cheeps on a `````bough. ````All of a sudden the sky seems full ````Of trusses of lighted cotton-wool ````And the enemy's big bow- `````wow! |THE firmament cracks with `````his airy mines, ````And an interlacing hail ````Threshes the clover between our `````lines, ````As a vile invisible flail. ````And the trench has become a `````mighty vice ````That holds us, in skins of molten `````ice, ````For the vapors that fringe the `````veil. |IT'S coming--in billowy swirls `````--as smoke ````From the roof a world on fire. ````It--comes! And a lad with a `````heart of oak ````Knows only that heart's de- `````sire! ````His masked lips whimper but one `````dear name-- ````And so is he lost to inward shame ````That he thrills at the word: ````"_Re-tire!_" |WHOSE is the order, thrice `````renewed? ````Ensign Joy cannot tell : ````Only, that way lies Ermyntrude, ````And the other way this hell! ````Three men leap from the pois- `````oned fosse,