That Barret, the painter of pictures, what feeling for color he had!And Fanning, the maker of music, such melodies mirthful and mad!And Harley, the writer of stories, so whimsical, tender and glad! To hark to their talk in the trenches, high heart unfolding to heart,Of the day when the war would be over, and each […]

What was the blackest sight to meOf all that campaign?A naked woman tied to a tree With jagged holes where her breasts should be, Rotting there in the rain. On we pressed to the battle fray,Dogged and dour and spent.Sudden I heard my Captain say:” Voila! Kultur has passed this way,And left us a monument.” […]

Now Kelly was no fighter;He loved his pipe and glass;An easygoing blighter,Who lived in Montparnasse.But ‘mid the tavern tattleHe heard some guinney say:“When France goes forth to battle,The Legion leads the way. “The scourings of creation, Of every sin and station, The men who’ve known damnation, Are picked to lead the way.” Well, Kelly joined […]

That boy I took in the car last night,With the body that awfully sagged away,And the lips blood-crisped, and the eyes flame-bright,And the poor hands folded and cold as clay–Oh, I’ve thought and I’ve thought of him all the day. For the weary old doctor says to me:“He’ll only last for an hour or so.Both […]

“Hullo, young Jones! with your tie so gayAnd your pen behind your ear;Will you mark my cheque in the usual way?For I’m overdrawn, I fear.”Then you look at me in a manner bland,As you turn your ledger’s leaves,And you hand it back with a soft white hand,And the air of a man who grieves. . […]

I saw three wounded of the war: And the first had lost his eyes; And the second went on wheels and had No legs below the thighs; And the face of the third was featureless, And his mouth ran cornerwise. So I made a rhyme about each one, And this is how my fancies run.

What d’ye think, lad; what d’ye think,As the roaring crowds go by?As the banners flare and the brasses blareAnd the great guns rend the sky?As the women laugh like they’d all gone mad,And the champagne glasses clink:Oh, you’re grippin’ me hand so tightly, lad,I’m a-wonderin’: what d’ye think? D’ye think o’ the boys we used […]

I wonder ‘oo and wot ‘e was,That ‘Un I got so slick.I couldn’t see ‘is face becauseThe night was ‘ideous thick.I just made out among the blackA blinkin’ wedge o’ white;Then biff! I guess I got ‘im crack —The man I killed last night. I wonder if account o’ meSome wench will go unwed,And ‘eaps […]

“There’s something in your face, Michael, I’ve seen it all the day;There’s something quare that wasn’t there when first ye wint away. . . .” “It’s just the Army life, mother, the drill, the left and right,That puts the stiffinin’ in yer spine and locks yer jaw up tight. . . .” “There’s something in […]

I’m crawlin’ out in the mangolds to bury wot’s left o’ Joe–Joe, my pal, and a good un (God! ‘ow it rains and rains).I’m sick o’ seein’ him lyin’ like a ‘eap o’ offal, and soI’m crawlin’ out in the beet-field to bury ‘is last remains. ‘E might ‘a bin makin’ munitions–‘e ‘adn’t no need […]

“I’m going, Billy, old fellow. Hist, lad! Don’t make any noise.There’s Boches to beat all creation, the pitch of a bomb away.I’ve fixed the note to your collar, you’ve got to get back to my Boys,You’ve got to get back to warn ’em before it’s the break of day.” The order came to go forward […]

Men of the High North, the wild sky is blazing;Islands of opal float on silver seas;Swift splendors kindle, barbaric, amazing;Pale ports of amber, golden argosies.Ringed all around us the proud peaks are glowing;Fierce chiefs in council, their wigwam the sky;Far, far below us the big Yukon flowing,Like threaded quicksilver, gleams to the eye. Men of […]

We’ve finished up the filthy war;We’ve won what we were fighting for . . .(Or have we? I don’t know).But anyway I have my wish:I’m back upon the old Boul’ Mich’,And how my heart’s aglow!Though in my coat’s an empty sleeve,Ah! do not think I ever grieve(The pension for it, I believe,Will keep me on […]

My rhymes are rough, and often in my rhymingI’ve drifted, silver-sailed, on seas of dream,Hearing afar the bells of Elfland chiming,Seeing the groves of Arcadie agleam. I was the thrall of Beauty that rejoicesFrom peak snow-diademed to regal star;Yet to mine aerie ever pierced the voices,The pregnant voices of the Things That Are. The Here, […]

I’m dead.Officially I’m dead. Their hope is past.How long I stood as missing! Now, at lastI’m dead.Look in my face–no likeness can you see,No tiny trace of him they knew as “me”.How terrible the change!Even my eyes are strange.So keyed are they to pain,That if I chanced to meetMy mother in the streetShe’d look at […]

Out of the night a crash,A roar, a rampart of light;A flame that leaped like a lash,Searing forever my sight;Out of the night a flash,Then, oh, forever the Night! Here in the dark I sit,I who so loved the sun;Supple and strong and fit,In the dark till my days be done;Aye, that’s the hell of […]

( The Dark Side ) My mind goes back to Fumin Wood, and how we stuck it out, Eight days of hunger, thirst and cold, mowed down by steel and flame; Waist-deep in mud and mad with woe, with dead men all about, We fought like fiends and waited for relief that never came. Eight […]

Now wouldn’t you expect to find a man an awful crankThat’s staked out nigh three hundred claims, and every one a blank;That’s followed every fool stampede, and seen the rise and fallOf camps where men got gold in chunks and he got none at all;That’s prospected a bit of ground and sold it for a […]

‘Twas up in a land long famed for gold, where women were far and rare,Tellus, the smith, had taken to wife a maiden amazingly fair;Tellus, the brawny worker in iron, hairy and heavy of hand,Saw her and loved her and bore her away from the tribe of a Southern land;Deeming her worthy to queen his […]

I took a contract to bury the body of blasphemous Bill MacKie,Whenever, wherever or whatsoever the manner of death he die–Whether he die in the light o’ day or under the peak-faced moon;In cabin or dance-hall, camp or dive, mucklucks or patent shoon;On velvet tundra or virgin peak, by glacier, drift or draw;In muskeg hollow […]