Classic Poem

A hand is crippled, a leg is gone,
And fighting's past for me,
The empty hours crawl slowly on;
How they flew where I used to be!
Empty hours in the empty days,
And empty months crawl by,
The brown battalions go their way,
And here at the Base I lie!

I dream of the grasses the dew-drops drench,
And the earth with the soft rain wet,
I dream of the curve of a winding trench,
And a loop-holed parapet;
The sister wraps my bandage again,
Oh, gentle the sister's hand,
But the smart of a restless longing, vain,
She cannot understand.

At night I can see the trench once more.
And the dug-out candle lit,
The shadows it throws on wall and floor
Form and flutter and flit.
Over the trenches the night-shades fall
And the questing bullet pings,
And a brazier glows by the dug-out wall.
Where the bubbling mess-tin sings.

I dream of the long, white, sleepy night
Where the fir-lined roadway runs
Up to the shell-scarred fields of fight
And the loud-voiced earnest guns;
The rolling limber and jolting cart
The khaki-clad platoon,
The eager eye and the stout young heart,
And the silver-sandalled moon.

But here I'm kept to the narrow bed,
A maimed and broken thing—
Never a long day's march ahead
Where brown battalions swing.
But though time drags by like a wounded snake
Where the young life's lure's denied,
A good stiff lip for the old pal's sake,
And the old battalion's pride!

The ward-fire burns in a cheery way,
A vision in every flame,
There are books to read and games to play
But oh! for an old, old game,
With glancing bay-net and trusty gun
And wild blood, bursting free!—
But an arm is crippled, a leg is gone,
And the game's no more for me.