Only A Boche Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDD EFGGHHIIJJ KKLLMM KKNNOO PPMMQQNN KKKKRS IIFEKK LL| We brought him in from between the lines we'd better have let him lie | A |
| For what's the use of risking one's skin for a tyke that's going to die | A |
| What's the use of tearing him loose under a gruelling fire | B |
| When he's shot in the head and worse than dead and all messed up on the wire | B |
| However I say we brought him in Diable The mud was bad | C |
| The trench was crooked and greasy and high and oh what a time we had | C |
| And often we slipped and often we tripped but never he made a moan | D |
| And how we were wet with blood and with sweat but we carried him in like our own | D |
| - | |
| Now there he lies in the dug out dim awaiting the ambulance | E |
| And the doctor shrugs his shoulders at him and remarks He hasn't a chance | F |
| And we squat and smoke at our game of bridge on the glistening straw packed floor | G |
| And above our oaths we can hear his breath deep drawn in a kind of snore | G |
| For the dressing station is long and low and the candles gutter dim | H |
| And the mean light falls on the cold clay walls and our faces bristly and grim | H |
| And we flap our cards on the lousy straw and we laugh and jibe as we play | I |
| And you'd never know that the cursed foe was less than a mile away | I |
| As we con our cards in the rancid gloom oppressed by that snoring breath | J |
| You'd never dream that our broad roof beam was swept by the broom of death | J |
| - | |
| Heigh ho My turn for the dummy hand I rise and I stretch a bit | K |
| The fetid air is making me yawn and my cigarette's unlit | K |
| So I go to the nearest candle flame and the man we brought is there | L |
| And his face is white in the shabby light and I stand at his feet and stare | L |
| Stand for a while and quietly stare for strange though it seems to be | M |
| The dying Boche on the stretcher there has a queer resemblance to me | M |
| - | |
| It gives one a kind of a turn you know to come on a thing like that | K |
| It's just as if I were lying there with a turban of blood for a hat | K |
| Lying there in a coat grey green instead of a coat grey blue | N |
| With one of my eyes all shot away and my brain half tumbling through | N |
| Lying there with a chest that heaves like a bellows up and down | O |
| And a cheek as white as snow on a grave and lips that are coffee brown | O |
| - | |
| And confound him too He wears like me on his finger a wedding ring | P |
| And around his neck as around my own by a greasy bit of string | P |
| A locket hangs with a woman's face and I turn it about to see | M |
| Just as I thought on the other side the faces of children three | M |
| Clustered together cherub like three little laughing girls | Q |
| With the usual tiny rosebud mouths and the usual silken curls | Q |
| Zut I say He has beaten me for me I have only two | N |
| And I push the locket beneath his shirt feeling a little blue | N |
| - | |
| Oh it isn't cheerful to see a man the marvellous work of God | K |
| Crushed in the mutilation mill crushed to a smeary clod | K |
| Oh it isn't cheerful to hear him moan but it isn't that I mind | K |
| It isn't the anguish that goes with him it's the anguish he leaves behind | K |
| For his going opens a tragic door that gives on a world of pain | R |
| And the death he dies those who live and love will die again and again | S |
| - | |
| So here I am at my cards once more but it's kind of spoiling my play | I |
| Thinking of those three brats of his so many a mile away | I |
| War is war and he's only a Boche and we all of us take our chance | F |
| But all the same I'll be mighty glad when I'm hearing the ambulance | E |
| One foe the less but all the same I'm heartily glad I'm not | K |
| The man who gave him his broken head the sniper who fired the shot | K |
| - | |
| No trumps you make it I think you said You'll pardon me if I err | L |
| For a moment I thought of other things Mon Dieu Quelle vache de gueerre | L |
Robert Service
(1)
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