Whether you cry from grief or smile with laughter,
Think of the present or past or hereafter,
Whether you’re rooming or whether house-keeping,
Sewing or darning or dusting or sweeping,
Dreaming of yours or some other girl’s brother,
This you will find whether waking or sleeping,
Life is but one darn thing after another.
III
If you have peace of mind or if you worry,
If things move slowly or if in a hurry,
If you make hasty steps or if you tarry,
If you stay single or if you marry,
Whether you barren be, whether a mother,
This you will find whate’er hap or miscarry,
Life is but one darn thing after another.
COURCELLETTE.
Early on an autumn morning,
Facing famous Courcellette,
Lay the Twenty-fifth battalion,
In the trenches damp and wet;
Far away from home and kindred,
Near the far-famed river Somme,
Here and there a man lay dying,
Stricken by a shell or bomb.
Men of every trade and calling,
Of each company formed a part,
Downy youth and bearded manhood
From the farm and from the mart,
Miners, farmers, sailors, tradesmen,
From each hamlet, town and glen,
Born of Nova Scotian mothers
From the breed of manly men.
All alert and ever watching,
On the guard both day and night,
Each one ever his part doing,
In the struggle for the right;
Thinking always of the homeland
Far away in Acadie,
Of a mother, wife, or sister
Whom they never more might see.
On the high hills overlooking,
All the country down below,
In their deep concreted dugouts,
Lay the ever watchful foe;
With artillery commanding
All the hills for miles around,
Through which, like a thread of silver,
River Somme its free way wound.
There were Saxons and Bavarians
In the Hun’s embattled host,
And the fierce and bloody Uhlans
Whom the Kaiser loves to toast;
Where they stood in close formation
Like a solid human block
Fronted by the famous fighters
Called the troops of battle shock.