Certain people would not clean their buttons, <br />Nor polish buckles after latest fashions, <br />Preferred their hair long, putties comfortable, <br />Barely escaping hanging, indeed hardly able; <br />In Bridge and smoking without army cautions <br />Spending hours that sped like evil for quickness, <br />(While others burnished brasses, earned promotions) <br />These were those ones who jested in the trench, <br />While others argued of army ways, and wrenched <br />What little soul they had still further from shape, <br />And died off one by one, or became officers, <br />Without the first of dream, the ghost of notions <br />Of ever becoming soldiers, or smart and neat, <br />Surprised as ever to find the army capable <br />Of sounding 'Lights out' to break a game of Bridge, <br />As to fear candles would set a barn alight: <br />In Artois or Picardy they lie - free of useless fashions.<br /><br />Ivor Gurney<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-bohemians/
