TRUCKS.

Lunging-wild, careening trucks Plunging through the rain, Sweeping down the rainbow road To the sunlit plain.

And echoing back with ponderous roar Their cargo's wild refrain. We're bowling over the roads of France — White roads.

We're twenty gray tracks in a long, long line, Twisting and rumbling and feeling fine. And some day we'll roll to the Watch on the Rhine — Joyous loads.

But now we're returning to billets for rest — Earned repose. We've been in the trenches for many a week. In rain and in wind and in dugouts that leak.

Till we all are so hoarse we scarcely can speak. Goodness knows. Our clothes they are worn and tattered and torn, And mud?

My heavens! we have it in our leggings and hair — On breeches and jackets and all that we wear — But we are so happy, we really do n't care — ‘ Tis n't blood.

It is n't those long, endless vigils at night, On the rack. It is n't the fighting and hunger and heat — It is n't the slush and rheumatics and sleet —

It is n't the once-a-day cold meal we eat In the black. It is n't the shelling from sun unto sun — Cursed shells:

It is n't the camouflage that you must use If you have to lie down in your trench for a snooze, It is n't the stenches the Hun corpses choose For their smells.

But it's clean clothes and gasoline-bath and a shave — What a treat! It's sleeping on elegant straw, and undressed, With never a Toto disturbing your rest;

It's regaining your “pep” and a wonderful zest When you eat. We're all of us willing, we're all of us game For the fray:

But now we have finished a good hitch, and more, In conducting this large and salubrious war, Do you think we should feel very tearful or sore On this day?

So some we are singing and some shoot the bull, And some sleep. ( Do n't wake the poor devil, just leave him alone, Though he's jammed on your foot till it's dead as a stone ),

And we rumble through towns on the way to our own, Packed like sheep. And your hand is afingering bills large and small — Francs galore.

And you've visions of things that your poor stomach begs, Including nuts, candy and chocolate and eggs; And you find you've forgotten the crick in your legs — Cramped and sore.

We're a light-hearted, dirty-faced, rollicking crew — Grimy pawed: Though a few cogitate on the living and dead, And some look behindward, and some look ahead,

And some think of bunkies that shrapnel has sped To their God. Lunging-wild, careening trucks Plunging through the rain,

Sweeping down the rainbow road To the sunlit plain, And echoing back with ponderous roar Their cargo's wild refrain.