(1) Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, Breakfast (1914)

We ate our breakfast lying on our backs
Because the shells were screeching overhead.
I bet a rasher to a loaf of bread
That Hull United would beat Halifax
When Jimmy Stainthorpe played full-back instead
Of Billy Bradford. Ginger raised his head
And cursed, and took the bet, and dropt back dead.
We ate our breakfast lying on our backs
Because the shells were stretching overhead.

(2) Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, Mad (1914)

Neck-deep in mud,
He mowed and raved -
He who had braved The field of blood -
And as a lad
Just out of school
Yelled - April Fool!
And laughed like mad.

(3) Wilfred Wilson Gibson, Lament (1916)

We who are left, how shall we look again
Happily on the sun or feel the rain
Without remembering how they who went
Ungrudgingly and spent
Their lives for us loved, too, the sun and rain?

A bird among the rain-wet lilac sings -
But we, how shall we turn to little things
And listen to the birds and winds and streams
Made holy by their dreams,
Nor feel the heart-break in the heart of things?