Jessie Pope

A Humble Appeal

She was a pretty, nicely mannered mare,
The children’s pet, the master’s pride and care,
Until a man in khaki came one day,
Looked at her teeth, and hurried her away.
 
With other horses packed into a train
She hungered for her master’s voice in vain;
And later, led 'twixt planks that scare and slip,
They slung her, terrified, on board a ship.
 
Next came, where thumps and throbbing filled the air,
Her first experience of mal de mare;
And when that oscillating trip was done
They hitched her up in traces to a gun.
 
She worked and pulled and sweated with the best;
A stranger now her glossy coat caressed
Till flashing thunderstorms came bursting round
And spitting leaden hail bestrewed the ground.
 
With quivering limbs, and silky ears laid back,
She feels a shock succeed a sharper crack,
And, whinnying her pitiful surprise,
Staggers and falls, and tries in vain to rise.
 
Alone, forsaken, on a foreign field
What moral does this little record yield?
Who tends the wounded horses in the war?
Well that is what the Blue Cross League is for.
Autres oeuvres par Jessie Pope...



Haut