Poetry from the Front Line

A Poem from G.R.
SOLDIER’S LAMENT ON A DULL EVENING

If this were June – sweet month of sun and roses –
And all the woods were filled with singing birds,
And I beside a streamlet dreamed and wandered,
My soul entranced, my heart too full for words,
I should rejoice, and sing aloud with rapture,
With all the world then I should be at peace,
An sweet content be mine that from my labours,
If but one day, I had found release.

But what’s the use? ‘Tis not the month of roses,
And all the woods are bare and bitter cold,
And night by night I freeze in flimsy blankets,
My soul in knots, my face grown wan and old.
No! This is Feb, a month of frost and chilblains;
And there’s the war – the world set by the ears;
And M.T’s thank, or curse, their categories;
So I’ll retire, and spend the night in tears

 

Taken from the Bromley & District Times, 2nd March 1917, pg 3

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