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Edward Dyson - Mud
Work rating: Low

This war`s a waste of slurry, and its at- 
     mosphere is mud, 
   All is bog from here to sunset. Wadin` 
     through 
We`re the victims of a thicker sort of universal 
     flood, 
   With discomforts that old Noah never knew. 

We have dubbed our trench The Cecil. 
     There`s a brass-plate and a dome, 
   And a quagmire where the doormat used 
     to be, 
If you`re calling, second Tuesday is our reg`- 
     lar day at home, 
   So delighted if you`ll toddle in to tea! 

There is mud along the corridors enough to 
     bog a cow; 
   In the air there hangs a musty kind of 
     woof; 
There`s a frog-pond in the parlour, and the 
     kitchen is a slough. 
   She has neither doors nor windows, nor a 
     roof. 

When they post our bald somnambulist as 
     missing from his flat 
  We take soundings for the digger with a 
     prop. 
By the day the board is gratis, by the week 
     it`s half of that; 
  For the season there`s a corresponding drop. 

Opening off the spacious hallway is my natty 
     little suite, 
   A commodious and accessible abode. 
By judicious disposition, with exclusion of 
     my feet, 
   There is sleeping room for Oliver the toad. 

Though the ventilation`s gusty, and in gobs 
     the ceiling falls— 
   Which with oral respiration disagrees— 
Though there comes a certain quantity of 
     seepage from the walls, 
   There are some I knew in diggings worse 
     than these. 

On my right is Cobber Carkeek. There`s a 
     spring above his head, 
   And his mattress is a special kind of clay. 
He`s a most punctilious bloke about the 
     fashion of his bed, 
   And he makes it with a shovel every day. 

Man is dust. If so, the Cobber has been 
     puddled up a treat. 
   On domestic sanitation he`s a toff, 
For he lights a fire on Sunday, bakes his sur- 
     face in the heat, 
   Then he takes a little maul, and cracks it 
     off. 

After hanging out a winter in this Cimmerian 
     hole 
   We`re forgetting sheets, and baths, and 
     tidy skins. 
In the dark and deadly calm last night they 
     took us on patrol. 
   Seven, little fellows, thinking of their sins. 

It was ours like blinded snails to prowl the 
     soggy, slimy night, 
   With a feeler pricking out at every pore 
For the death that stalks in darkness, or the 
     blinking stab of light, 
   And the other trifling matters that are war. 

That`s the stuff to get your liver, that`s the 
     acid on a man, 
   For it tries his hones, and seeks his marrow 
     throngh. 
You have got the thought to comfort you that 
     life is but a span, 
   If Fritz squirts his loathly limelight over 
     you. 

We got back again at daybreak. Cobber 
     ducked to doss and said, 
   From the soft, embracing mud: “No more 
     I`ll roam. 
“Oh, thank Heaven, blokes,” he murmured, 
     “for the comforts of a bed! 
   Gorstruth, but ain`t it good to have a 
     home!”
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