He takes to fighting as a game;
He does no talking, through his hat,
Of holy missions; all the same
He has his faith—be sure of that;
He'll not disgrace his sporting breed,
Nor play what isn't cricket. There's his creed.
Owen Seaman
October, 1914
IN THE TRENCHES
As I lay in the trenches
Under the Hunter's Moon,
My mind ran to the lenches
Cut in a Wiltshire down.
I saw their long black shadows,
The beeches in the lane,
The gray church in the meadows
And my white cottage—plain.
Thinks I, the down lies dreaming
Under that hot moon's eye,
Which sees the shells fly screaming
And men and horses die.
And what makes she, I wonder,
Of the horror and the blood,
And what's her luck, to sunder
The evil from the good?
'T was more than I could compass,
For how was I to think
With such infernal rumpus
In such a blasted stink?
But here's a thought to tally
With t'other. That moon sees
A shrouded German valley
With woods and ghostly trees.