Entrenched on the Aisne

The Fifth Huzzars were ordered out To labour at the trenches, Along the Aisne a blinding rain Came down in sheets and drenches.

A young lieutenant took a spade, And cast away his sabre, “My lads,” he said “dig up a clod,— And glory be to labour.

“But while I dig a word to you, Old man beside my elbow, When I enrolled I left a girl Who thought I was a swell beau:

“Laugh not, old man, for I can talk; In moonlight like another; But now, I want to talk to you As if you were my brother.”

With this he took a picture out And flashed it at the old man; “She’s sweeter than the smile you see, And worth her weight in gold, man.”

“Young man,” he said, “I’m not so old, But I might be her father; I have a picture I might show, If it were not a bother.”

And all the while they bantered thus, The shells were bursting ’round them, And the downpour in the trenches ran, Small wonder if it drowned them.

No doubt the youth was edging up To tell a sober story, A message for the girl if he Should fall in trenches gory.

The Germans now had got the range, Their cannonade was furious; “I say, old man, the way those shells Go skyting round is curious.”

And at the word a bursting shell, Filled with a hellish mixture, Tore from its roots the poor lad’s arm That held the sweetheart’s picture.

Another dreadful fragment struck The old man on the forehead— And, just to use plain English now, The mess was something horrid.

And there they lay with glassy eyes Until the night was starry, Sad magnets for the birds of prey That hunt their mangled quarry.

The youth’s torn limb not far from him, Still clutched the dear love-token; The old man had a duplicate, Though stained with blood and broken.