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Read Ebook: Trench Ballads and Other Verses by Garrett Erwin Clarkson
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Ebook has 440 lines and 22864 words, and 9 pages
PART I--TRENCH BALLADS
PART II--PRE-WAR POEMS
MY COMRADES IN THE RANKS.
TRENCHES.
Trenches dripping, wet and cold-- Trenches hot and dry-- Long, drab, endless trenches Stretching far and nigh.
Zigzag, fretted, running sere From the cold North Sea, 'Cross the muddy Flanders plain And vales of Picardy.
Through the fields of new, green wheat Filled with poppies red, While abandoned plow-shares show Whence the peasants fled.
Past the great cathedral towns, Where each gorgeous spire Torn and tottering, slowly wilts 'Neath the Vandals' ire.
Hiding in the shadows Of the hills of French Lorraine, And bending south through rugged heights To the land of sun again.
Trenches, endless trenches, Shod with high desire-- All that man holds more than life, And touched with patriot fire.
Trenches, endless trenches, Where tightening draws the cord 'Round the throat of brutal Kultur, And its red and dripping sword.
Trenches, endless trenches, Bleached and choked with rain, Could ye speak what tales ye'd tell Of honor, death and pain.
Could ye speak, what tales ye'd tell Of shame and golden worth, To the glory and damnation Of the spawn of all the Earth.
BARB-WIRE POSTS.
Five o 'clock; the shadows fall In mist and gloom and cloud; And No Man's Land is a sullen waste, Wrapped in a sodden shroud; And the click of Big Mac's moving foot Is a dangerous noise and loud.
Ten o'clock; the wind moans low-- Each tree is a phantom gray: And the wired posts are silent ghosts That move with a drunken sway; .
Twelve o 'clock; the heavens yawn Like the mouth of a chasm deep; And see--that isn't the fence out there-- It's a Boche--and he stoops to creep-- I'll take a shot--oh hell, a post-- .
Two o 'clock; the cold wet fog Bears down in dripping banks: Ah, here they come--the dirty hounds-- In swinging, serried ranks! Why don't the automatics start? . . . Or do my eyes play pranks?
It doesn't seem a column now, But just two sneaking there: And one is climbing over, While the other of the pair Is clipping at the wires With exasperating care.
Three o'clock; they're on the move-- Well, let the beggars come. . . . A crash -- a hush -- a spiral shriek-- And a noise like a big bass drum-- .
. . . . . . . . . .
Five o'clock; the first faint streak Of a leaden dawn lifts gray; And the barb-wire posts are sightless ghosts That swagger, click and sway, And seem to grin, in their blood-stained sin, In a most unpleasant way.
FEET.
Some say this war was fought and won With gleaming bayonets, That lift and laugh with Death's own chaff And leave no fond regrets: Some, by the long lean foul-lipped guns Where the first barrages meet, But I, by the poor old weary limping Tired broken feet.
YOUR GAS-MASK.
When over your shoulders your "full-field" you fling, And you curse the whole load for a horrible thing, What is it you reach for, as outward you swing? Your gas-mask.
If you head for a bath by the small river's flow-- Though only a distance of fifty or so-- What is it you carefully grab ere you go? Your gas-mask.
In morning and afternoon, evening and night-- In first or support lines, in sleep or in fight, What is it you cherish and cling to so tight? Your gas-mask.
What is it you never leave thoughtless behind? What is it you clutch for with fingers that bind As you sniff that first odor that comes on the wind? Your gas-mask.
SLUM AND BEEF STEW.
It's a lot of dirty water And some little dabs of spuds, And dubious hunks of gristly meat And divers other duds.
Served up to us in trenches, Our hunger made it good, But elsewhere--when we got it-- "We ate it, if we could.
And now about the time Josephus Tells his gobs to call Port and Starboard, left and right, We're ordered, one and all,
To most respectfully address Our slum as "beef stew"--Gosh, Methinks the Brains of the Army Has dished-up awful bosh.
As 'twas when Cyrus' doughboys swept Through the Cilician Gates-- And as 'twill ever be so long As a weary mess-line waits.
So long as Nations fight and eat-- Though all don't feed as well-- For the Colonel is Sitting on the World-- While we are S. O. L.
Perhaps, kind friend, our logic may Strike you as on the bum-- But as we're Pershing's slum-hounds, We'll call the damn thing "slum".
SHELL-FIRE.
Now one hits the village church, And the ancient, wavering wall And the little pointed tower swing And stagger and sway and fall.
Now one hits a red-slag roof, And eighty feet on high Towers a monstrous, salmon cloud Against an azure sky.
Now one hits in a field of wheat, Fresh planted, fair and green, And a mighty, thundering crater bursts Where abandoned plows careen.
Now one nears with spiral shriek And strikes in the long white road, And the Lord ha' mercy on the Red Cross truck, And its helpless, weary load.
Now one comes where you crouching wait In the trench's far-flung line, And you know there is never shelter against The voice of that deadly whine.
Now one pierces the dugout's roof, And when the foul smokes pass, What once was there a dozen men Is a crimson, clotted mass.
In the pale moonlight or the black of night-- When the sunset fires flare-- In the noontime's calm, without alarm, The Great Arch Fiend is there, With his frightful cry as he rushes nigh On his errand of despair.
MR. FLY.
There's a nice stiff breeze ablowing, Mr. Fly; That keeps from out my trench. The decomposing stench Of a soldier, Boche or French, Mr. Fly.
So please run off and play, Mr. Fly. So please run off and play Like a good fly, right away, For I want to sleep today, Mr. Fly.
I'm dozing like a bull-finch, Mr. Fly, When you hop me, unaware, And I wake and swat and swear, And you return with thoughtful care, Mr. Fly.
Do you think it's square and decent, Mr. Fly, When the Cooties cease to bite, That you give me no respite, Mr. Fly?
An hour's calm is with us, Mr. Fly; And the endless battle strain, And the shelling and the rain, Ought to make it very plain, Mr. Fly--
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