The “Dud” [poem, 18 January 1918]

[Editor: Published in Aussie: The Australian Soldiers’ Magazine, no. 1, 18 January 1918.]

The “Dud.”

A Dud lies here, disturb him not
But let him rest in peace.
He resteth from the weary world,
His work at last doth cease.
Condemned unto a violent death
Far from his place of birth,
But to our great and glad surprise,
He now lies deep in earth.

He put the wind up all of us
When first we heard him scream.
We woke in fright; we shrivelled up;
’Twas like an awful dream.
But there he lies, in calm content,
His work on earth is done,
Disturb him not, but let him rest,
The blanky, rotten Hun!

Mac.

Source:
Aussie: The Australian Soldiers’ Magazine, no. 1, 18 January 1918, page 14

Editor’s notes:
dud = something which does not work properly, or does not work at all; in a military context, “dud” commonly refers to an artillery shell, a bomb, or similar, which does not explode

Hun = Germans (“Hun” could be used in a singular sense to refer to an individual German, as well as in a collective sense to refer to the German military or to Germans in general) (similar to the usage of “Fritz”); in this poem, “Hun” refers to a German artillery shell