Jam (A Hymn of Hate)

What is meant by active service

        'Ere where sin is leakin' loose,

    'N' the oldest 'and's as nervis

        As a dog-bedevilled goose,

    Has bin writ be every poet

        What can rhyme it worth a dam,

    But the 'orror as we know it

        Is jist jam, jam, JAM!

    Oh, the 'ymn of 'ate we owe it—

Stodgy, splodgy, seepy, soaky, sanguinary

      jam!

    There's the “fearful roar iv battle,”

        What gets underneath yer 'at,

    Mooin' like a million cattle

        Each as big as Ararat;

    There's the red field green 'n' slippy

        (And I'm cleaner where I am),

    But the thing that's got me nippy

        It is jam, jam, JAM!

    Druv us sour it has, 'n' dippy,

Sticky, sicky, slimy, sloppy, stummick-strafin'

      jam!

    Of the mud that's in the trenches

        Writers make a solemn fuss;

    For the vermin 'n' the stenches

        Little ladies pity us;

    But the yearn that's honest dinkum,

        'N' the prayer what ain't a sham

    Is that Fritz may bust 'n' sink 'em

        Ships of jam, jam, JAM!

    For we bolt 'em, chew 'em, drink 'em,

Million billion bar'ls of beastly, cloyin'

      clammy jam!

    We are sorry-sick of peaches,

        'N' we're full right up of plum,

    'N' innards fairly screeches

        When the tins of apple come.

    Back of Blighty piled in cases,

        Jist as close as they can cram,

    Fillin' all the open spaces,

        Is the 'jam, jam, JAM!

    Oh, the woe the soldiers face is,

Monday, Sunday, ruddy, muddy, boundless

      bogs of jam.