<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">Any Mother</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"<span class="smallcaps">What's</span> the news? Now tell it me."</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">"Allenby again advances."</p><p class="line">"No, it is not Allenby</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">But my boy, straight as a lance is.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"Oh, my boy it is that runs,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Hurls his young and slender body</p><p class="line">On the dread death-dealing guns.</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Oh, he's down! his head is bloody!"</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"Haig's offensive has begun."</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">"Say not Haig's nor any other,</p><p class="line">Since it is my one sweet son</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">In the gases' risk and smother.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"He is taken by the throat,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">In the bursting flame will quiver,</p><p class="line">He the billet for all shot,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">He the shell's objective ever."</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">So not Allenby nor Haig,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">But her darling goes to battle.</p><p class="line">All the world's red mist and vague</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Shattered by the scream and rattle.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Just one slender shape she sees,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">One bright head tossed hither, thither;</p><p class="line">Oh, if he goes down the seas</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Whelm her and the world together!</p></div></body></html> · Great War