Poet's Corner

MY OFFICERS

Who is it think I'm strung on wire,
With arms and feet that never tire,
Expect me, with a smiling face,
From dewy morn till eve to race
And never use their heads to save
My legs from running to the grave?
My officers.

Who is it that, when old or grand,
My limitations understand,
As majors or as colonels scan
Their orderly as fellow man,
But, as subalterns often seem
To think, he's just a dud machine?
My officers.

But there must come an end to strife,
And we go back to private life;
When I once more can take my ease,
And do as little as I please.
Who, in their turn - their war work done -
Ah, blessed hope, may have to run?
My officers!

H.M.N.

***

CYNICAL SONG OF A SISTER

Tell me not in accents tender
That an army nurse's life if fine;
It has joys beyond recall -
Listening to the Tommies' whine.

First it's socks, and then it's hankies,
Kit shirts and vests, the morning long;
The afternoon - sheets and pyjama trousers;
In the evening the same old song.

It is good to smooth their pillows,
Cheer them all upon their way,
Regulars, Terriers, Canadians and Anzacs,
Grumbling or growling the livelong day.

Oh, the Tommies oft remind us,
As we work from morn till night,
That the saying is a true one,
'The more you work, the more you might.'

But let us all, then, grin and bear it,
Grumbling only makes us worse;
When they're marked up for disposal
They always want to take their nurse.


F.M. FULLER, R.A.M.C.(T.)