It's hard to know if you're alive or dead <br />When steel and fire go roaring through your head. <br /> <br />One moment you'll be crouching at your gun <br />Traversing, mowing heaps down half in fun: <br />The next, you choke and clutch at your right breast - <br />No time to think - leave all - and off you go… <br />To Treasure Island where the Spice winds blow, <br />To lovely groves of mango, quince and lime - <br />Breathe no good-bye, but ho, for the Red West! <br />It's a queer time. <br /> <br /> <br />You're charging madly at them yelling 'Fag!' <br />When somehow something gives and your feet drag. <br />You fall and strike your head; yet feel no pain <br />And find… you're digging tunnels through the hay <br />In the Big Barn, 'cause it's a rainy day. <br />Oh, springy hay, and lovely beams to climb! <br />You're back in the old sailor suit again. <br />It's a queer time. <br /> <br /> <br />Or you'll be dozing safe in your dug-out - <br />A great roar-the trench shakes and falls about <br />You're struggling, gasping, struggling, then… hullo! <br />Elsie comes tripping gaily down the trench, <br />Hanky to nose-that lyddite makes a stench - <br />Getting her pinafore all over grime. <br />Funny! because she died ten years ago! <br />It's a queer time. <br /> <br /> <br />The trouble is, things happen much too quick; <br />Up jump the Boches, rifles thump and click, <br />You stagger, and the whole scene fades away: <br />Even good Christians don't like passing straight <br />From Tipperary or their Hymn of Hate <br />To Alleluiah-chanting, and the chime <br />Of golden harps… and… I'm not well to-day… <br />It's a queer time.<br /><br />Robert Graves<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/it-s-a-queer-time/
