'In the Pink'
So Davies wrote: ‘ This leaves me in the pink. ’
Then scrawled his name: ‘ Your loving sweetheart Willie ’
With crosses for a hug. He’d had a drink
Of rum and tea; and, though the barn was chilly,
For once his blood ram warm; he had pay to spend,
Winter was passing; soon the year would mend.
He couldn’t sleep that night. Stiff in the dark
He groaned and thought of Sundays at the farm,
When he’d go out as cheerful as a lark
In his best suit to wander arm—in—arm
With brown—eyed Gwen, and whisper in her ear
The simple, silly things she liked to hear.
And then he thought: to—morrow night we trudge
Up to the trenches, and my boots are rotten.
Five miles of stodgy clay and freezing sludge,
And everything but wretchedness forgotten.
To—night he’s in the pink; but soon he’ll die.
And still the war goes on; he don’t know why.
