A Song Of Winter

Mud on the Somme

World War I

Men actually drowned in the deep mud during

the Battle of the Somme which took place

in northern France in 1916

It isn't the foe that we fear;

It isn't the bullets that whine;

It isn't the business career

Of a shell, or the bust of a mine;

It isn't the snipers who seek

To nip our young hopes in the bud:

No it isn't the guns,

And it isn't the Huns

It's the mud,

 mud,

 mud.

It isn't the melee we mind.

That often is rather good fun.

It isn't the shrapnel we find

Obtrusive when rained by the ton,

It isn't the bounce of the bombs

That gives us a positive pain:

It's the strafing we get

When the weather is wet-

It's the rain,

 rain, 

rain.

It isn't because we lack grit

We shrink from the horrors of war

We don't mind the battle a bit;

In fact that is what we are for;

It isn't the rum-jars and things

Make us wish we were back in the fold:

It's the fingers that freeze

In the boreal breeze-

It's the cold,

 cold, 

cold.

Oh, the rain, the mud, and the cold,

The cold, the mud, and the rain;

With weather at zero its hard for a hero

From language that's rude to refrain.

With porridgy muck to the knees,

With sky that's a-pouring a flood,

Sure the worst of our foes

And the pain and the woes

Of the rain,

 the cold,

 and the mud.

Canadian Gun Runners In The Mud Passchendaele

(1917)

Albert Bastien

(1873-1955)

Belgian artist

"A Song Of Winter"

(1916)

From "The Poems Of A Red Cross Man"

Robert W. Service

(1874-1958)

Canadian-British poet

Often called the "Bard of the Yukon"