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A Song of Winter Weather


By Robert W Service



 

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 it's 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
Are the pains and the woes
Of the RAIN,
the COLD,
and the MUD.



 

Robert W Service (1874-1958) was born in Preston, England; but emigrated to Canada in 1894 after having attended the University of Glasgow. He worked in a bank for eight years in the Yukon territory, and immortalised it in his first collection of poetry, Songs of a Sourdough, published in 1907. He worked as a reporter for the Toronto Star, and was an ambulance driver during the First World War. (This particular poem is taken from 'Rhymes of a Red Cross Man' about that time - The collection was dedicated to his brother, Lieutenant Albert Service of the Canadian Infantry who was killed in action in France in August 1916). After the war he lived in France, but returned to Canada during the Second World War, and then moved back to France afterwards. All the while having a healthy output of work. His most famous poem is probably The Shooting of Dan McGrew.



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