Interrupted Chow
I’VE had some mighty narrow calls—
Some close shaves not a few,
But one of the fairly closest
I’ll now narrate to you.
‘Twas midnight—hush! the plot grows thick—
Crowd close, and hold your breath—
‘Twas midnight—and the slum-cart came
Upon its round of death.
(It isn’t realy that the slum
Was quite as bad as that,
(But the playful Boche so often dropped
A shell where it was at.)
‘Twas midnight—and our appetites
Were whetted large and keen,
As trench feed, once a day, must leave
An interval between.
And so we sought the buzzy-cart,
“Mess-kits alert” and found
It standing in a quiet spot
Where never came a sound—
Expecting that of bursting shells
Across the field a way,
(But as I said before, the Boche
Is very given to play).
All innocent and hungry-like
And empty to the core,
I came upon that buzzy-cart,
With never thought of war.
More calm, beneficient and mild—
More free from things of strife—
I promise you I never was
In all my mortal life.
The air was fair, the stars were out,
The mocking-bird sang clear;
The poppies bloomed, the sergeants fumed,
And food was very near.
When suddenly the ground gave way—
It seemed a mile or more—
And the whole adjacent landscape leapt
To heaven with a soar.
Earth, rocks and stars commingling
In a swirling mass arose,
Where I, recumbent in the hole,
Assumed an easy pose.
And when I found that I was there—
Both arms, both legs, and head,
I picked me up and cogitated
Why I wasn’t dead.
For information looked I ’round
North, south and east and west—
But the good platoon had up and cleared
Some several feet with zest.
(And the strangest phase of the whole strange thing,
For me to understand,
Was that when I got up I had
My mess-kit in my hand.)
(And there I sttod and gazed me down
Upon the hole and mud,
And found I was alive because
That blamed shell was a “dud.”
A dud’s shell that fails to burst—
Whose crater’s microscopic—
And as I’d just sunk down in it,
My Fates were philanthropic—
For had the bally thing gone off—
Instead of sitting jake—
You’d ne’er have found my scattered parts
With a hair-comb or a rake.
You’d ne’er have found your humble slave—
For, sprinkled east and west,
My sad remains would scarce have bulged
The pocket of your vest.
A finger in Benares—
A toe in Timbuctoo—
And on the Mountains of the Moon
A portion of my shoe.
An eye on Kinchinjanga—
To greet the snow-peaked morn;
An ear at Cape Lopatka,
And my dog-tag at the Horn.
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