"PUNCH" IN THE ENEMY'S TRENCHES.
[To the officer whose letter, reproduced in The Daily Telegraph, after reporting the irregular exchange of Christmas gifts between our men and the enemy, goes on to say:—"In order to put a stop to a situation which was proving impossible, I went out myself after a time with a copy of 'Punch,' which I presented to a dingy Saxon in exchange for a small packet of excellent cigars and cigarettes.">[
A Scent of truce was in the air,
And mutual compliments were paid—
A sausage here, a mince-pie there,
In lieu of bomb and hand-grenade;
And foes forgot, that Christmastide,
Their business was to kill the other side.
Then, greatly shocked, you rose and said,
"This is not my idea of War;
On milk of human-kindness fed,
Our men will lose their taste for gore;
All this unauthorized good-will
Must be corrected by a bitter pill."
And forth you strode with stiffened spine
And met a Saxon in the mud
(Not Anglo-) and with fell design
To blast his joyaunce in the bud,
And knock his rising spirits flat,
You handed him a Punch and said, "Take that!"
A smile upon his visage gleamed.
Little suspecting your intent,
He proffered what he truly deemed
To be a fair equivalent—
A bunch of fags of local brand
And Deutschodoros from the Vaterland.
You found them excellent, I hear;
Let's hope your gift had equal worth,
Though meant to curb his Christmas cheer
And check the interchange of mirth;
I should be very glad to feel
It operated for his inner weal.
For there he found, our dingy friend,
Amid the trench's sobering slosh,
What must have left him, by the end,
A wiser, if a sadder, Bosch,
Seeing himself with chastened mien
In that pellucid well of Truth serene.
O. S.