BALLADS OF BATTLE
9
For when the night was dark with dread, and the day was red with death,
And the whimper of the speeding steel passed like a shuddering breath,
And the air was thick with wingéd war, riven shard, and shrieking shell,
And all the earth did spit and spume like the cauldron hot of Hell:
When the heart of man might falter, and his soul be sore afraid—
We just dived into the dug-out that Macfarlane made![1]
And the whimper of the speeding steel passed like a shuddering breath,
And the air was thick with wingéd war, riven shard, and shrieking shell,
And all the earth did spit and spume like the cauldron hot of Hell:
When the heart of man might falter, and his soul be sore afraid—
We just dived into the dug-out that Macfarlane made![1]
Deep is the sleep I've had therein, as free from sense of harm,
As when my curly head was laid in the crook of my mother's arm;
My old great-coat for coverlet, curtain, and counterpane,
While patter, patter on the roof, came the shrapnel lead like rain;
As when my curly head was laid in the crook of my mother's arm;
My old great-coat for coverlet, curtain, and counterpane,
While patter, patter on the roof, came the shrapnel lead like rain;
- ↑ It may interest the reader to know that these lines are being written during a very considerable bombardment, in which one misses the friendly proximity of just such a dug-out as Macfarlane's.
