<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="" class="head">To Basil, a Bavarian Bomber</h1><h1 align="" class="head"><span class="smallcaps">In Memory of the Barricades in the Labyrinth</span></h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">IN that remembered and unpleasant spot,</p><p class="line">Where 'twas my task to haunt the barricade,</p><p class="line">To hurl the bomb and give it to you hot</p><p class="line">For every little tiny sound you made.</p><p class="line">Oh, Basil, when at first your bombs returned,</p><p class="line">Our martial spirits quickened and we burned</p><p class="line">To land you one--the very batmen yearned</p><p class="line">For that decease of yours too long delayed.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">And it was very galling, when we threw</p><p class="line">Grenades that might have chilled the stoutest's blood,</p><p class="line">Only to hear that plaintive call from you,</p><p class="line">Informing us it was another dud.</p><p class="line">And when the gent from the Brigade was nigh,</p><p class="line">Watching our Millses' fizzing through the sky,</p><p class="line">To see you hit him neatly in the eye</p><p class="line">With little well-aimed lumps of harmless mud.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Often men came to me and said that they</p><p class="line">Had done you in at last and heard you yell,</p><p class="line">But 'twas my sorrow on th' ensuing day</p><p class="line">To hear again the voice I knew so well.</p><p class="line">And when one night with dark and fell design</p><p class="line">We carried out that raid upon your line,</p><p class="line">It was with hopes, old enemy of mine,</p><p class="line">That we should send you rapidly to hell.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">But now that I am far from war's alarms</p><p class="line">I like to muse upon the years to come</p><p class="line">When we shall both have done with force and arms,</p><p class="line">And Mills and Spaeter<a class="footnote" href="#mackintosh94" name="mackintosh94-link" xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">1</a> will alike be dumb,</p><p class="line">And those familiar accents I shall hear.</p><p class="line">And we shall meet, oh peerless grenadier--</p><p class="line">What shall it be, my Basil? Whisky? Beer?</p><p class="line">Or punch concocted out of ration rum?</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">I think it shall be punch; I also think</p><p class="line">That, as we ladle down the potent brew,</p><p class="line">Myself and you, my Basil, ought to drink</p><p class="line">Health to the barricades at which we threw</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">The bomb, a much less dangerous affair,</p><p class="line">And I at last shall down you; for whate'er</p><p class="line">Impotent things my poor old Millses were,</p><p class="line">My punch is not a dud, I promise you.</p></div></body></html> · Great War