Now one hits a red-slag roof,
And eighty feet on high
Towers a monstrous, salmon cloud
Against an azure sky.
Now one hits in a field of wheat,
Fresh planted, fair and green,
And a mighty, thundering crater bursts
Where abandoned plows careen.
Now one nears with spiral shriek
And strikes in the long white road,
And the Lord ha’ mercy on the Red Cross truck,
And its helpless, weary load.
Now one comes where you crouching wait
In the trench’s far-flung line,
And you know there is never shelter against
The voice of that deadly whine.
Now one pierces the dugout’s roof,
And when the foul smokes pass,
What once was there a dozen men
Is a crimson, clotted mass.
In the pale moonlight or the black of night—
When the sunset fires flare—
In the noontime’s calm, without alarm,
The Great Arch Fiend is there,
With his frightful cry as he rushes nigh
On his errand of despair.
MR. FLY.
There’s a nice stiff breeze ablowing,
Mr. Fly;
That keeps from out my trench.
The decomposing stench
Of a soldier, Boche or French,
Mr. Fly.
So please run off and play,
Mr. Fly.
So please run off and play
Like a good fly, right away,
For I want to sleep today,
Mr. Fly.
I’m dozing like a bull-finch,
Mr. Fly,
When you hop me, unaware,
And I wake and swat and swear,
And you return with thoughtful care,
Mr. Fly.