There’s something wronpg with my brain tonight,
Though I’ve drawn the blinds and I’ve quenched the light;
I can’t for the life of me sleep a wink,
I lie in the dark and think; and think.
While the hours creep by and the clock ticks loud, Like the steady tramp of a marching crowd;
And the forms and faces of men long dead,
Peer and cluster about my bed.
I watch them come and I watch them go,
And they nudge each other and whisper low, Though the doors are locked and the windows too,
Now: What In Hell Is A Man To Do?

Hello! Curran, you damned old scamp, First of tp.e mates I met in camp;
If I had a bottle we’d drink a toast,
To old Romani and Tus.son’s Post.
But I know you are only an empty ghost, When last we met we were far away,
That was at Raffa on Christmas Day;
On Christmas Day, but we had no spread,
But plenty of bullets and bombs irlstead. And in lieu of whisky and beers and wines,
A gust of shrapnel and five point nines.
Christmas cheer from the Moslem lines.

We had marched all day: We were parched with thirst,
Savage and hungry, and how we cursed;
When we swung in line for the last attack,
But we stormed the trenches and drove them hack. And I saw you later spread-eagled out,
Face up in front of the first redoubt.
With most of your brains in your old slouch hat, But what is the good of a dream like that?

Heads a “fiver”: Who’s got the kip?
Shamrock Ryan, you take my tip;
He’ll head ’em once·: He’ll head ’em twice,
He’s just the same with the cards and dice. Don’t set the centre, that’s my advice,
He might do five and -he might do ten,
Up they go and they’re heads again.
Always smiling and always cool,
He won’t let up till he breaks the school.
Fifty he heads ’em: who wants •a bet?
Fair to spinner: the centre’s set;
And he’s done another: I knew he would, He was always lucky: but what’s the good?

Lying there with his face all wan,
And one leg shattered, and one arm gone;
While his heart is pumping his life blood out, Like water pumped from a two-inch spout.
And he draws his breath with a gurgling hiss,
But: what’s the good of a dream like this?

Night and noise ir1 a Cairo den,
Naked women and drunken men;
An acrid smell like a sacrifice,
Offered up to the gods of Vice.
Someone fumbling the broken keys,
Of an old piano with win_dy wheeze;
An oath, a scuffle, a crash, a yell,
Drink and women don’t mix too well;
Make for the stairway: grab the stool,
The “Jacks” are coming: put out the lights.
What’s gone wrong with the drunken fool?
I’m sick to death of those drunlcen fights; Crash of furniture: oaths and screams.
Oh! I’m sick to death of those ugly dreams.

Take me me somewhere and sink me deep,
Into a fathomless gulf of sleep;
With Sealed up eyes and with padlocked ears, And let me slumber for years and years.

With sealed up eyes and with padlocked ears, That will be heaven rnough for me;
I want no angels or jasper throne,
I only want to be left alone;

For I’m sick to death of lying awake,
Waiting and watching for dawn to break.
While the hours creep by and I hear them strike, Till I’ve almost forgotten what sleep is like. ” And I’m sick of the figures tnat crowd the gloom, And flit ,and chuckle about the room.
Till dawn’s cold light on the window gleams,
And puts an end to those ugly dreams.