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Library / Literature & Fiction

Rhymes of a Red Cross Man

by Robert W. Service

Pages
about 2
Category
Literature & Fiction
Language
English
Reading time
2 min at 250 wpm
Start readingThe whole book, as cards or one word at a time. 1 min at 450 wpm in Read mode.

From the opening

My job is done; my rhymes are ranked and ready, My word-battalions marching verse by verse; Here stanza-companies are none too steady; There print-platoons are weak, but might be worse. And as in marshalled order I review them, My type-brigades, unfearful of the fray, My eyes that seek their faults are seeing through them Immortal visions of an epic day.

It seems I'm in a giant bowling-alley; The hidden heavies round me crash and thud; A spire snaps like a pipe-stem in the valley; The rising sun is like a ball of blood. Along the road the "fantassins" are pouring, And some are gay as fire, and some steel-stern. . . . Then back again I see the red tide pouring, Along the reeking road from Hebuterne.

And once again I seek Hill Sixty-Seven, The Hun lines grey and peaceful in my sight; When suddenly the rosy air is riven-- A "coal-box" blots the "boyou" on my right. Or else to evil Carnoy I am stealing, Past sentinels who hail with bated breath; Where not a cigarette spark's dim revealing May hint our mission in that zone of death.

I see across the shrapnel-seeded meadows The jagged rubble-heap of La Boiselle; Blood-guilty Fricourt brooding in the shadows, And Thiepval's chateau empty as a shell. Down Albert's riven streets the moon is leering; The Hanging Virgin takes its bitter ray; And all the road from Hamel I am hearing The silver rage of bugles over Bray.

Once more within the sky's deep sapphire hollow I sight a swimming Taube, a fairy thing; I watch the angry shell flame flash and follow In feather puffs that flick a tilted wing; And then it fades, with shrapnel mirror's flashing; The flashes bloom to blossoms lily gold; The batteries are rancorously crashing, And life is just as full as it can hold.

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