<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="" class="head">The Lay of the Bombardier<br xmlns:exist="http://exist.sourceforge.net/NS/exist" xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"/> (Old style)</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">MY ways are lonely and apart.</p><p class="line">My very name a thing of fear;</p><p class="line">I am the man without a heart,</p><p class="line">I am the Lord High Bombardier.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">My mattins is the shrapnel's scream.</p><p class="line">My evensong the bullet's crack;</p><p class="line">The happy state of which I dream</p><p class="line">To strafe and never be strafed back.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Oft-times with Red Hats hovering near</p><p class="line">I hold a mystic high debate</p><p class="line">On how to fill the Boche with fear.</p><p class="line">On Frightfulness, or "What is Hate?"</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">How some bombs burst long ere they land.</p><p class="line">Others, the choicest, as they fall;</p><p class="line">How some dissect the thrower's hand,</p><p class="line">While most will never burst at all.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">With that spring-throated Juggernaut</p><p class="line">That spits explosive at the sky.</p><p class="line">No dark-browed scholar devil-taught</p><p class="line">Could be more intimate than I.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">For me no more the secret cult</p><p class="line">Of "ampot," "Hairbrush," "Pitcher," "Ball,"</p><p class="line">Holds fear; the erratic catapult</p><p class="line">Has lost all power to appal.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">With many a brother anarchist</p><p class="line">By night I prowl from ten till one.</p><p class="line">Thirsting to keep a bloody tryst</p><p class="line">With some rotund unready Hun.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">So runs my life, but when the end</p><p class="line">Comes on the wings of shot or shell,</p><p class="line">No tears will save, nor loving friend.</p><p class="line">For me there waits the bomber's Hell,</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Where with the unsubstantial shades</p><p class="line">In groves where shells eternal fall</p><p class="line">I'll fill Satanic hand-grenades</p><p class="line">With fourth-dimension ammonal.</p></div><p>FLANDERS, 1915.</p></body></html> · Great War