64497: It's A Queer Time

<p dir="ltr"> It's hard to know if you're alive or dead<br> When steel and fire go roaring through your head.<br> One moment you'll be crouching at your gun<br> Traversing, mowing heaps down half in fun:<br> The next, you choke and clutch at your right breast---<br> No time to think---leave all---and off you go...<br> To Treasure Island where the Spice winds blow,<br> To lovely groves of mango, quince and lime---<br> Breathe no goodbye, but ho, for the Red West!<br> It's a queer time.<br> You're charging madly at them yelling 'Fag!'<br> When somehow something gives and your feet drag.<br> You fall and strike your head; yet feel no pain<br> And find...you're digging tunnels through the hay<br> In the Big Barn, 'cause it's a rainy day.<br> Oh springy hay, and lovely beams to climb!<br> You're back in the old sailor suit again.<br> It's a queer time.<br> Or you'll be dozing safe in your dug-out---<br> A great roar---the trench shakes and falls about---<br> You're struggling, gasping, struggling, then...hullo!<br> Elsie comes tripping gaily down the trench,<br> Hanky to nose---that lyddite makes a stench---<br> Getting her pinafore all over grime.<br> Funny! because she died ten years ago!<br> It's a queer time.<br> The trouble is, things happen much too quick;<br> Up jump the Bosches, rifles thump and click,<br> You stagger, and the whole scene fades away:<br> Even good Christians don't like passing straight<br> From Tipperary or their Hymn of Hate<br> To Alleluiah-chanting, and the chime<br> Of golden harps...and...I'm not well to-day...<br> It's a queer time.</p>