Wartime Poetry from Active Servicemen

If you read my post last night I put a poem in that i thought was lovely but i'd photographed the book and it was not clear.   So today im posting it and others that took our fancy from Tom's new book from 1941.   Below each one is the writer's intials and army number. 

My Favorite

To One at Home

Do not be saddened for my sake,

For I shall keep my tryst with you

Some morning when the dawn shall break

Upon a world where hope is new.

Yes, I shall keep the rendezvous,

Beloved One, which we have made -

And all the past shall fade into

A dim and dream-like cavalcade

Of half-remembered griefs and fears,

Which we shall doubt were ever true -

And love shall fill the golden years

With sweetness - when our pain is through.

"VZ36684"

I wonder if this soldier made it home to his beloved one to keep their rendezvous?

Tom's Favorite

Song of a Military Surgeon

Behold me, a surgeon! Perhaps you will think

Im a solemn and serious chap;

That my head's full of surgical wisdom and lore,

That i revel in other men's gore

As it drips to the floor from my lap;

And yet I assure you I visibly shrink

At the sight of a mouse in a trap.

The Diggers, I'm sure think my nerves are of steel;

That I'm forceful and strong in my way;

That patients all worship my capable hands;

That the D.M.S. heeds all my strangest demands

An hangs on each word that i say.

Withal, at the dentist's it seems that I feel

As humble and wretched as they.

The orderlies, doubtless, imagine I'm great,

And the Sisters, of course, all agree,

As I don rubber gloves and then pick up a knife

To save some great general's valuable life,

There's no one as brilliant as me.

And yet, in the mess, im reserved and sedate,

And as modest as modest can be.

You'll say that my function in life is to heal

And devotedly tend to the ill;

To give a fresh hope to the halt and the lame,

And even - Oh, Rapture - at last attain fame

By giving my name to a pill.

But can you imagine the sorrow I'll feel

With no Army Forms left to fill.

"NX70280"

Were those that were thought to be brave and strong just as scared as those in their command?

Porthole Reverie

Gazin' through my porthole

At the lazy swellin' sea,

Thinkin' hard of distant lands

So far astern of me.

Yes! Thinkin' of a sun-drenched land,

An' rollin' black-soil plains

Where we mustered "clean-skin mickies"

In the months before the rains.

Thinkin' of a homestead

Where the "paper-barks" grow tall,

An' the laughter int he stock-yards

When some "Myall" got a fall.

Ah! Those days were always pleasant,

An' our lives were always free,

When we'd celebrate the brandin'

Up in Darwin on the spree.

Grazin' through my porthole,

At a sea of deepest blue

It's nice to go on dreamin'...

But for me, there's work to do.

"DX113"

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