Hell and Earth

The Devil rose from the flaming Pit to look on the fields of blood,
And he watched the man-waves meet and merge in a frightful swirling flood;
He heard the cries of the wounded rise and the guns' mad anthem swell,
And a sobbing lad whom he helped to die groaned, "God! but it's just like Hell!"

The Devil sank to his roaring Pit, and a cunning smile had he,
For bursts and billows of flame were there as far as a fiend could see.
"God burn the gunners!" he gaily roared, and chuckled with new found mirth,
"This Hell of mine is a cosy place! 'Fore God, but it's just like Earth!"

Lance Corporal Albert Martin, MM, served with the New Zealand Army in Western Europe during World War One and carried a newspaper cutting of this poem in his paybook. Unfortunately, the author's name was not retained with the cutting.

Poetry index    |    NZ artillery of World War One    |    Old Comrades' home page