(James H. Knight-Adams)
No Man’s Land is an eerie sight,
At early dawn, in that pale gray light;
Never a house and never a hedge,
In No Man’s Land, from edge to edge,
And never a living soul walks there,
To smell the fresh taste of morning air;
Only some lumps of rotting clay,
That were friends or foe of yesterday.
What are the bounds of No Man’s Land?
You can see them clearly on either hand;
A mound of sandbags, gray from sun,
Or a furrow of brown where the trenches run,
From the Eastern hills to the Western sea,
Through field and forest, o’er river and lea;
No man may pass them, but aim you well,
For death rides across on bullet and shell
No Man’s Land is a goblin’s sight,
When patrols crawl out at the dead of night;
German, British, the Yanks or the French,
Play dice with death when they cross that trench,
When tracers, like fireflies in the dark,
Buzz by your helmet, spark by spark;
And you drop for cover to save your head,
With your face on the chest of a four-month dead.
The man who ventures in No Man’s Land,
Is dogged by shadows on either hand,
With the star-shells flare, as it burst o’erhead,
Scares the rats that feed on the fallen dead;
And a bursting bomb or a bayonet scratch,
May answer the click of your safety-catch,
For the lone patrol, with his life in hand,
Is hunting for blood there in No Man’s Land.
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