Out of the trenches lifts a half-shamed song,
“Holy Night”
Here, where the sappers burrowed all night long
To bring the trench up for the morrow’s fight,
A British lad, with face unwonted white,
Looks at the sky and sings a carol through,
“God rest you merry, gentlemen!”
It was the only Christmas thing he knew.
And there were tears wrung out of hard-lipped men,
Tears in the strangest places,
Tears on troopers’ faces!