Excerpt from Buddy's Blighty: And Other Verses From the Trenches

"I often wonder what the vintners buy,
One half so precious as the stuff they sell" -
So marvelled he, who sang of love and wine,
Of life and death, of Heaven and of Hell.
And now he lies at peace, nor sings at all,
In that fair garden where the rose-leaves fall.

So, as I sit and scatter ink and try
These weak and wandering verses to indite,
I often wonder what the rhymesters know
One half so foolish as the stuff they write,
But still I scrawl - the Lord above knows why
One who knows nought of poetry should try.

But, 'cross in Flanders, when the rain was cold,
The trenches muddy and the Germans rough.
To keep from feeling sorry for myself
I took to spoiling paper with this stuff,
It helped me pass a dismal hour or two -
I only hope 'twill do the same for you. J. T.

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