More Trench Poetry

Thursday 5^th August: We have received the following poem from a Bedfordshire Regiment soldier at the front who wishes to remain anonymous. He says: When the tumult and the shouting dies we get a leisure hour and the circumstance is bad verse. But if you have spare space and think it worth while “faites ce que vous voulez” I hope you don’t mind, but having read and re-read your last issue, which is in my dug-out here, I have smeared it with a little ration honey and hung it up. Whether it is the good reading or the honey I don’t know but, my word, the flies!”

A Summer Holiday for 1915

When Summer blends to Autumn,

And the corn is turning brown,

My year of work is past and gone,

I lose life’s care and frown

For me a month to wander

I holiday at ease,

Just here or there or yonder,

Homeland or overseas

I loved my month by mountain stream,

I’ve tanned my face on the sea,

I’ve seen the cities of Europe,

I’ve rested and felt myself free,

But this year I am having a change,

And I trust it is not ill spent,

In a little mud hut just four feet high,

Lent by the Government

My outlook isn’t hill or dale,

It’s simply a sand-bagged trench;

When wet it is full of mud that sticks,

When dry there’s a deuce of a stench.

And one hundred yards or so in front,

A Strafing foe lies hid

And to show yourself in the open

Is from Hell to raise the lid.

But inside the trench we’re a merry crew,

For the right tight comrades are we;

We grouse and quip, we laugh and chip,

A jolly fine company.

We all our doing our sundry bits

In a cause that is right and just,

And we care not a hang for Karl and Fritz

Or the whiz-bangs as they bust.

We come from the corners of the Earth,

From the cities and countryside;

From Colonies across the sea,

From the Empire far and wide.

Both rich and poor have sent their sons,

Links of a wonderful chain.

Hanging together against all foes,

Till a lasting Peace shall reign.

And though Death comes to some each day,

What better end can there be?

For a man who knows he is fighting

In the cause of Liberty.

And I like to think in the Courts above,

There’s a special Hall kept today

For the bonnie lads who don’t return

From their chosen Holiday

Source: Bedfordshire Times 6th August 1915