TRENCHES.

Trenches dripping, wet and cold —

Trenches hot and dry —

Long, drab, endless trenches

Stretching far and nigh.

Zigzag, fretted, running sere

From the cold North Sea,

‘ Cross the muddy Flanders plain

And vales of Picardy.

Through the fields of new, green wheat

Filled with poppies red,

While abandoned plow-shares show

Whence the peasants fled.

Past the great cathedral towns,

Where each gorgeous spire

Torn and tottering, slowly wilts

‘ Neath the Vandals’ ire.

Hiding in the shadows

Of the hills of French Lorraine,

And bending south through rugged heights

To the land of sun again.

Trenches, endless trenches,

Shod with high desire —

All that man holds more than life,

And touched with patriot fire.

Trenches, endless trenches,

Where tightening draws the cord

‘ Round the throat of brutal Kultur,

And its red and dripping sword.

Trenches, endless trenches,

Bleached and choked with rain,

Could ye speak what tales ye'd tell

Of honor, death and pain.

Could ye speak, what tales ye'd tell

Of shame and golden worth,

To the glory and damnation

Of the spawn of all the Earth.