To you who’d read my songs of War  
  And only hear of blood and fame,  
I’ll say (you’ve heard it said before)  
  "War’s Hell!" and if you doubt the same,  
Today I found in Mametz Wood 
A certain cure for lust of blood:  
  
Where, propped against a shattered trunk,  
  In a great mess of things unclean,  
Sat a dead Boche; he scowled and stunk  
  With clothes and face a sodden green, 
Big-bellied, spectacled, crop-haired,  
Dribbling black blood from nose and beard.