In The Pink

So Davies wrote: "This leaves me in the pink."     Then scrawled his name: "Your loving sweetheart, Willie."     With crosses for a hug. He'd had a drink     Of rum and tea; and, though the barn was chilly,     For once his blood ran warm; he had pay to spend.     Winter was passing; soon the year would mend.     He couldn't sleep that night. Stiff in the dark     He groaned and thought of Sundays at the farm,     When he'd go out as cheerful as a lark     In his best suit to wander arm-in-arm     With brown-eyed Gwen, and whisper in her ear     The simple, silly things she liked to hear.     And then he thought: to-morrow night we trudge     Up to the trenches, and my boots are rotten.     Five miles of stodgy clay and freezing sludge,     And everything but wretchedness forgotten.     To-night he's in the pink; but soon he'll die.     And still the war goes on; he don't know why.