Voices of Silence (16 page)

Humble their birth, yet great their grace,

What though they thump the yeasty flour

When Julia lifts to me her face,

What man but envies me my hour?

And when, a-strolling at my ease,

I look to pass the time away,

At Marguerite a-shelling peas,

What dog but envies me my day?

Ah! pity me, poor luckless wight,

Thus envious envied, much bemused,

Yet, should I strive to set wrong right,

Who knows I were by one refused?

So deeply pledged to Marguerite,

So basely bound to Julia’s nod,

My only hope’s a shell to meet,

And hide my shame beneath the sod.

In these days of stress and tumult, when the frightfulness of war

Readjusts the private notions which were prejudiced before,

It behoves the present critic to express his deep regrets

For his strictures on the makers of the nation’s novelettes.

He has sneered at them and found it far from easy to forgive

Their adeptness at the splitting of the frail infinitive;

He has sniggered at the love scenes, where, in sylvan spots apart,

Eva emptied over Ernest all the slop-pail of her heart.

But to-day the case is altered, now that somewhere that is French

’Tis the novelette brings comfort to the troops that man the trench;

Tommy, resting from his labours, is perusing with a zest

How Sir Blagdon hugged Belinda to his large expanse of breast.

Here’s a luck to such romancing; may ideas be never short

To the British novelettist of the sentimental sort!

May whatever gods inspire him keep his fancy free and fit,

For he’s Tommy’s favourite reading; so he does his little bit!

T. Hodgkinson

He loves the Merry ‘Tatler’, he adores the Saucy ‘Sketch’,

The ‘Bystander’ also fills him with delight;

But the pages that he revels in, the evil-minded wretch,

Are the adverts of those things in pink and white.

They are advertised in crêpe de chine, and trimmed with silk and lace;

The pictures fairly make him long for leave;

And while he gloats upon their frills, he cannot find the grace

To read the pars of P
HRYNETTE
, B
LANCHE
and
EVE
.

Before the war, he’d hardly heard of lace and lingerie;

He didn’t know the meaning of chemise,

But thanks to weekly papers, this astounding mystery

Has been solved by dainty
VENN
and dear
LABISE
.

Before the war, he only knew of corsets and of hats,

All other vogues invoked a ribald ‘what-ho’.

But the last decree of Fashion is a dinky nightie, that’s

Embroidered with his regimental motto.

It’s this war that is responsible for teaching simple youth

All sorts of naughty Continental tricks;

And already he’s decided, when it’s over, that, in truth,

He’ll buy mamma a pair of cami-knicks.

R[egimental] M[edical] O[fficer]

There was an old dame at La Bassée

Who was quite undeniably passée

When they said ‘Mad’moiselle

Vous êtes encore très belle,’

She replied ‘Je suis très embarrassée.’

The old men sit by the chimney-piece and drink the good red wine

And tell great tales of the
Soixante-Dix
to the men from the English line,

And Madame sits in her old arm-chair and sighs to herself all day –

So Madeleine serves the soldiers in the Green Estaminet.

For Madame wishes the War was won and speaks of a strange disease,

And Pierre is somewhere about Verdun, and Albert on the seas;

Le Patron, ’e is
soldat
too, but long time
prisonnier
–

So Madeleine serves the soldiers in the Green Estaminet.

She creeps downstairs when the black dawn scowls and helps at a neighbour’s plough,

She rakes the midden and feeds the fowls and milks the lonely cow,

She mends the holes in the Padre’s clothes and keeps his billet gay –

And she also serves the soldiers in the Green Estaminet.

The smoke grows thick and the wine flows free and the great round songs begin,

And Madeleine sings in her heart, maybe, and welcomes the whole world in;

But I know that life is a hard, hard thing and I know that her lips look gray,

Though she smiles as she serves the soldiers in the Green Estaminet.

But many a tired young English lad has learned his lesson there,

To smile and sing when the world looks bad, ‘
for, Monsieur, c’est la guerre
’,

Has drunk her honour and made his vow to fight in the same good way

That Madeleine serves the soldiers in the Green Estaminet.

A big shell came on a windy night, and half of the old house went,

But half of the old house stands upright, and Mademoiselle’s content;

The shells still fall in the Square sometimes, but Madeleine means to stay

So Madeleine serves the soldiers still in the Green Estaminet.

A.P. Herbert

As I lay in the trenches at Noove Chapelle,

Where the big guns barked like the Hounds o’ Hell,

Sez I to mysel’, sez I to mysel’ –

Billy, me boy, here’s the end o’ you –

But if, by good luck, ye should chance to slip thro’

Ye’ll bid all ye’r evil companions adieu;

Keep the Lord’s ten Commands – and Lord Kitchener’s two –

Sez I to mysel’ – at Noove Chapelle.

No more women, and no more wine,

No more hedgin’ to get down the line,

No more hoggin’ around like a swine,

After Noove Chapelle – sez I to mysel’.

But only the good God in Heaven knows

The wayward way that a soldier goes,

And He must ha’ left me to walk by mysel’ –

For three times I’ve fell, since Noove Chapelle.

Once at Bethune and twice at Estaires,

The devil gripped hould o’ me unawares –

Yet often and often I’ve prayed me prayers,

Since I prayed by mysel’ at Noove Chapelle.

Well, the Lord above, who fashioned the French,

May bethink how bewitchin’ is wine and a wench

To a chap that’s been tied for three weeks to a trench,

Around Noove Chapelle – that black border o’ Hell.

And me throat was dry and the night was damp,

And the rum was raw – and red was the lamp! –

And – Billy, my boy, ye’r a bit o’ a scamp,

That’s the truth to tell – tho’ I sez it mysel’.

What’s worritin’ me isn’t fear that they’ll miss

Me out o’ the ranks in the realms o’ bliss;

It ain’t hope o’ Heaven, nor horror o’ Hell,

But just breakin’ the promise, ’twixt God and mysel’,

Made at Noove Chapelle.

Well, there’s always a way that is open to men

When they gets the knock-out – that’s get up again;

And, sure now, ould Satan ain’t yet counted ten!

I’m game for another good bout wi’ mysel’ –

As at Noove Chapelle.

Joseph Lee

Mark i, Easy, Free and

To-night it’s ‘Free and Easy’

And William’s going to sing

His repertoire’s as breezy

As Robey, Earl of Bing.

Oh, Censor, do be careful,

When we all shout for more,

What William may

Produce by way

Of his umpteenth encore.

A Rest-Camp.

Somewhere . . . Sometime . . .

And the Y.M. tent crowded . . . crowded . . .

And again, crowded.

Silence.

The tense silence of dense masses of tens of

Tense men in tents . . .

Then a Voice . . .

Oh dear me, what a Voice!

And the hoarse applause of scores of paws on paws;

Because

Of the sweet politeness of them,

And the great good nature of them,

And also because a man can only die once . . .

Generally speaking.

And is She really coming –

The one with the long black tights?

‘Me and My Girl’ they are strumming –

’Minds me of Empire nights,

And Margate . . . and the Follies . . .

Lor lumme, can’t she dance!

It’s not
all
plum-and-apple

Out in France.

Hampden Gordon

O consolation and refreshment breathed

From the young Spring with apple-blossom wreathed,

Whose certain coming blesses

All life with token of immortality,

And from the ripe beauty and human tendernesses

And reconcilement and tranquillity

Which are the spirit of all things grown old.

For now that I have seen

The curd-white hawthorn once again

Break out on the new green,

And through the iron gates in the long blank wall

Have viewed across a screen

Of rosy apple-blossom the grey spire

And low red roofs and humble chimney-stacks,

And stood in spacious courtyards of old farms,

And heard green virgin wheat sing to the breeze

And the drone of ancient worship rise and fall

In the dark church, and talked with simple folk

Of farm and village, dwelling near the earth,

Among earth’s ancient elemental things:

I can with heart made bold

Go back into the ways of ruin and death

With step unflagging and with quiet breath,

For drawn from the hidden Spirit’s deepest well

I carry in my soul a power to quell

All ills and terrors such as they can hold.

Martin Armstrong

Unrest is in the trees

And billowy clouds drive by:

The curvèd moon rides high

Like a ship midst stormy seas.

Beneath her fitful light,

To the trench’s treachery

And all Fate may decree,

Fearless we march to-night.

The reflected life of man

’Neath the moon’s reflected light,

Riding its stormy night

To the end no eye may scan.

F.W. Harvey