• The telegram came one sunny Sunday morn,
    Elsie stood at the stove, quietly shucking corn,
    It was Winter, and the skies were supposed to be grey,
    But they were clear as far as the shores of the bay,
    And Elsie absentmindedly thought of what weather could mean,
    To her fiance who sat in a trench across the sea.
    Perhaps he was drinking, he had always had that vice,
    Or maybe he was eating a meal of stew and rice,
    Was he bunking down in a barn full of hay?
    Had he perhaps been withdrawn from the line today?
    Did the soldiers have padres and sermons and prayers?
    Did they have dreams and hopes and fears?
    Elsie would never know, for there came a knock at the door,
    She wiped her hands and answered, shoes clicking on the floor,
    On the doorstep was the boy, and in his grasp a telegram,
    Elsie thanked him and opened it with trembling hands.
    She felt her breath catch in her throat as she saw the words,
    The teapot whistled shrilly, but Elsie hadn't heard,
    "Private Peters killed in action" the telegram read,
    "Victim of a shell, there were fourteen other dead".
    They were due to be married, when he came home from the war,
    And he had been planning on a career enforcing the law,
    But now he was dead, and he would never come home,
    And Elsie was truly, and completely, alone.