THE WAR-DREAM.
I Wish I did not dream of France
And spend my nights in mortal dread
On miry flats where whizz-bangs dance
And star-shells hover o'er my head,
And sometimes wake my anxious spouse
By making shrill excited rows
Because it seems a hundred "hows"
Are barraging the bed.
I never fight with tigers now
Or know the old nocturnal mares;
The house on fire, the frantic cow,
The cut-throat coming up the stairs
Would be a treat; I almost miss
That feeling of paralysis
With which one climbed a precipice
Or ran away from bears.
Nor do I dream the pleasant days
That sometimes soothe the worst of wars,
Of omelettes and estaminets
And smiling maids at cottage-doors;
But in a vague unbounded waste
For ever hide with futile haste
From 5.9's precisely placed,
And all the time it pours.
Yet, if I showed colossal phlegm
Or kept enormous crowds at bay,
And sometimes won the D.C.M.,
It might inspire me for the fray;
But, looking back, I do not seem
To recollect a single dream
In which I did not simply scream
And try to run away.
And when I wake with flesh that creeps
The only solace I can see
Is thinking, if the Prussian sleeps,
What hideous visions his must be!
Can all my dreams of gas and guns
Be half as rotten as the Hun's?
I like to think his blackest ones
Are when he dreams of me.
A.P.H.
"Street lamp-posts in Chiswick are all being painted white by female labour."—Times.
The authorities were afraid, we understand, that if males were employed they would paint the town red.
"Four groups of raiders tried to attack London on Saturday night. If there were eight in each group, this meant thirty-two Gothas."—Evening Standard.
In view of the many loose and inaccurate assertions regarding the air-raids, it is agreeable to meet with a statement that may be unreservedly accepted.
