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The Young Guard
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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!"
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!"
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