ANONYMOUS

Please don't burn our shit-house down,
     Mother has promised to pay.
      Father's away on the ocean wave,
      And sister's in the family way,

      Brother dear has gonorrhea,
     And times is fucking hard.
     So please don't burn our shit-house down,
      Or we'll all have to shit in the yard.

So we'll go no more a roving.
Lord Byron
  So we'll go no more a roving
          So late into the night,
      Though the heart be still as loving,
         And the moon be still as bright.

     For the sword outwears its sheath,
          And the soul wears out the breast,
      And the heart must pause to breathe,
          And Love itself have rest.
      Though the night was made for loving,
       And the day returns too soon,
   Yet we'll go no more a roving
        By the light of the moon.

Dulce et Decorum est
Wifred Owen
  Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
  Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned out backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
  Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
  But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
  Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!--An ecstasy of fumbling
  Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
  But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
  And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime.--
  Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
  As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

  If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
  Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
  And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
  His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,
  If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
  Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
  Bitter as the cud
  Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
  My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
  To children ardent for some desperate glory,
  The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
  Pro patria mori.

The little vagabond-Blake
Dear mother, dear mother, the church is cold,
     But the ale-house is healthy and pleasant and warm;
      Besides I can tell where I am used well,
     Such usage in Heaven will never do well.

        But if at the church they would give us some ale,
     And a pleasant fire our souls to regale,
      We'd sing and we'd pray all the live-long day,
     Nor ever once wish from the church to stray.

       Then the parson might preach, and drink, and sing,
    And we'd be as happy as birds in the spring;
    And modest Dame Lurch, who is always at church,
    Would not have bandy children, nor fasting, nor birch.

      And God, like a father rejoicing to see
   His children as pleasant and happy as he,
   Would have no more quarrel with the Devil or the barrel,
    But kiss him, and give him both drink and apparel.