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1
2Men Who March Away
3
4(Song of the Soldiers)
5What of the faith and fire within us
6Men who march away
7Ere the barn-cocks say
8Night is growing gray,
9Leaving all that here can win us;
10What of the faith and fire within us
11Men who march away?
12Is it a purblind prank, O think you,°
13Friend with the musing eye,
14Who watch us stepping by
1510
16
17With doubt and dolorous sigh?
18Can much pondering so hoodwink you!
19Is it a purblind prank, O think you,
20Friend with the musing eye?
21Nay. We well see what we are doing,
22Though some may not see—
23Dalliers as they be—
24England’s need are we;
25Her distress would leave us rueing:
26Nay. We well see what we are doing,
2720
28
29Though some may not see!
30In our heart of hearts believing
31Victory crowns the just,
32And that braggards must
33Surely bite the dust,
34Press we to the field ungrieving,
35In our heart of hearts believing
36Victory crowns the just.
37Hence the faith and fire within us
38Men who march away
3930
40
41Ere the barn-cocks say
42Night is growing gray,
43Leaving all that here can win us;
44Hence the faith and fire within us
45Men who march away.
465 September 1914
47England to Germany in 1914
48
49‘O England, may God punish thee!’
50—Is it that Teuton genius flowers°
51Only to breathe malignity
52Upon its friend of earlier hours?
53—We have eaten your bread, you have eaten ours,
54We have loved your burgs, your pines’ green moan,°
55Fair Rhine-stream, and its storied towers;°
56Your shining souls of deathless dowers°
57Have won us as they were our own:
58We have nursed no dreams to shed your blood,
5910
60
61We have matched your might not rancorously
62Save a flushed few whose blatant mood°
63You heard and marked as well as we
64To tongue not in their country’s key;
65But yet you cry with face aflame,
66‘O England, may God punish thee!’
67And foul in outward history,
68And present sight, your ancient name.
69Autumn 1914
70On the Belgian Expatriation
71
72I dreamt that people from the Land of Chimes°
73Arrived one autumn morning with their bells,
74To hoist them on the towers and citadels
75Of my own country, that the musical rhymes
76Rung by them into space at meted times°
77Amid the market’s daily stir and stress,
78And the night’s empty star-lit silentness,
79Might solace souls of this and kindred climes.
80Then I awoke; and lo, before me stood
81The visioned ones, but pale and full of fear;
8210
83
84From Bruges they came, and Antwerp, and Ostend,°
85No carillons in their train. Foes of mad mood°
86Had shattered these to shards amid the gear°
87Of ravaged roof, and smouldering gable-end.
8818 October 1914
89The Pity of It
90
91I walked in loamy Wessex lanes, afar
92From rail-track and from highway, and I heard
93In field and farmstead many an ancient word
94Of local lineage like ‘Thu bist’, ‘Er war’,
95‘Ich woll’, ‘Er sholl’, and by-talk similar,°
96Nigh as they speak who in this month’s moon gird
97At England’s very loins, thereunto spurred
98By gangs whose glory threats and slaughters are.
99Then seemed a Heart crying: ‘Whosoever they be
100At root and bottom of this, who flung this flame
10110
102
103Between kin folk kin tongued even as we are,
104‘Sinister, ugly, lurid, be their fame;
105May their familiars grow to shun their name,
106And their brood perish everlastingly.’
107April 1915
108In Time of ‘The Breaking of Nations’1
109
110I
111
112Only a man harrowing clods
113In a slow silent walk
114With an old horse that stumbles and nods
115Half asleep as they stalk.
116II
117Only thin smoke without flame
118From the heaps of couch-grass;°
119Yet this will go onward the same
120Though Dynasties pass.°
121III
122Yonder a maid and her wight°
123Come whispering by:
12410
125
126War’s annals will cloud into night
127Ere their story die.
1281 Jer., LI 20. [Hardy’s note]
129Before Marching and After
130
131(In Memoriam F.W.G.)
132Orion swung southward aslant
133Where the starved Egdon pine-trees had thinned,°
134The Pleiads aloft seemed to pant°
135With the heather that twitched in the wind;
136But he looked on indifferent to sights such as these,
137Unswayed by love, friendship, home joy or home sorrow,
138And wondered to what he would march on the morrow.
139The crazed household-clock with its whirr
140Rang midnight within as he stood,
141He heard the low sighing of her
14210
143
144Who had striven from his birth for his good;
145But he still only asked the spring starlight, the breeze,
146What great thing or small thing his history would borrow
147From that Game with Death he would play on the morrow.
148When the heath wore the robe of late summer,
149And the fuchsia-bells, hot in the sun,
150Hung red by the door, a quick comer
151Brought tidings that marching was done
152For him who had joined in that game overseas
153Where Death stood to win, though his name was to borrow
15420
155
156A brightness therefrom not to fade on the morrow.
157September 1915
158A New Year’s Eve in War Time
159
160I
161Phantasmal fears,
162And the flap of the flame,
163And the throb of the clock,
164And a loosened slate,
165And the blind night’s drone,
166Which tiredly the spectral pines intone!
167II
168And the blood in my ears
169Strumming always the same,
170And the gable-cock°
171With its fitful grate,
17210
173
174And myself, alone.
175III
176The twelfth hour nears
177Hand-hid, as in shame;°
178I undo the lock,
179And listen, and wait
180For the Young Unknown.°
181IV
182In the dark there careers—
183As if Death astride came
184To numb all with his knock—
185A horse at mad rate
18620
187
188Over rut and stone.°
189V
190No figure appears,
191No call of my name,
192No sound but ‘Tic-toc’
193Without check. Past the gate
194It clatters—is gone.
195VI
196What rider it bears
197There is none to proclaim;
198And the Old Year has struck,
199And, scarce animate,
20030
201
202The New makes moan.
203VII
204Maybe that ‘More Tears!—
205More Famine and Flame—
206More Severance and Shock!’
207Is the order from Fate
208That the Rider speeds on
209To pale Europe; and tiredly the pines intone.
2101915–1916
211I Looked Up from My Writing
212
213I looked up from my writing,
214And gave a start to see,
215As if rapt in my inditing,°
216The moon’s full gaze on me.
217Her meditative misty head
218Was spectral in its air,
219And I involuntarily said,
220‘What are you doing there?’
221‘Oh, I’ve been scanning pond and hole
222And waterway hereabout
22310
224
225Or the body of one with a sunken soul
226Who has put his life-light out.
227‘Did you hear his frenzied tattle?°
228It was sorrow for his son
229Who is slain in brutish battle,
230Though he has injured none.
231‘And now I am curious to look
232Into the blinkered mind
233Of one who wants to write a book
234In a world of such a kind.’
23520
236
237Her temper overwrought me,
238And I edged to shun her view,
239For I felt assured she thought me
240One who should drown him too.
241‘According to the Mighty Working’
242
243I
244When moiling seems at cease°
245In the vague void of night-time,
246And heaven’s wide roomage stormless
247Between the dusk and light-time,
248And fear at last is formless,
249We call the allurement Peace.
250II
251Peace, this hid riot, Change,
252This revel of quick-cued mumming,°
253This never truly being,
254This evermore becoming,
25510
256
257This spinner’s wheel onfleeing
258Outside perception’s range.
2591917
260‘And There Was a Great Calm’
261
262(On the Signing of the Armistice, 11 Nov. 1918)
263I
264There had been years of Passion—scorching, cold,
265And much Despair, and Anger heaving high,
266Care whitely watching, Sorrows manifold,
267Among the young, among the weak and old,
268And the pensive Spirit of Pity whispered, ‘Why?’°
269II
270Men had not paused to answer. Foes distraught
271Pierced the thinned peoples in a brute-like blindness,
272Philosophies that sages long had taught,
273And Selflessness, were as an unknown thought,
274And ‘Hell!’ and ‘Shell!’ were yapped at Lovingkindness.
27510
276
277III
278The feeble folk at home had grown full-used
279To ‘dug-outs’, ‘snipers’, ‘Huns’, from the war-adept
280In the mornings heard, and at evetimes perused;
281To day-dreamt men in millions, when they mused—
282To nightmare-men in millions when they slept.
283IV
284Waking to wish existence timeless, null,
285Sirius they watched above where armies fell;°
286He seemed to check his flapping when, in the lull
287Of night a boom came thencewise, like the dull
288Plunge of a stone dropped in some deep well.
28920
290
291V
292So, when old hopes that earth was bettering slowly
293Were dead and damned, there sounded ‘War is done!’
294One morrow. Said the bereft, and meek, and lowly,
295‘Will men some day be given to grace? yea, wholly,
296And in good sooth, as our dreams used to run?’
297VI
298Breathless they paused. Out there men raised their glance
299To where had stood those poplars lank and lopped,
300As they had raised it through the four years’ dance
301Of Death in the now familiar flats of France;°
302And murmured, ‘Strange, this! How? All firing stopped?’
30330
304
305VII
306Aye; all was hushed. The about-to-fire fired not,
307The aimed-at moved away in trance-lipped song.
308One checkless regiment slung a clinching shot
309And turned. The Spirit of Irony smirked out, ‘What?°
310Spoil peradventures woven of Rage and Wrong?’°
311VIII
312Thenceforth no flying fires inflamed the gray,
313No hurtlings shook the dewdrop from the thorn,
314No moan perplexed the mute bird on the spray;
315Worn horses mused: ‘We are not whipped to-day;’
316No weft-winged engines blurred the moon’s thin horn.°
31740
318
319IX
320Calm fell. From Heaven distilled a clemency;
321There was peace on earth, and silence in the sky;
322Some could, some could not, shake off misery:
323The Sinister Spirit sneered: ‘It had to be!’°
324And again the Spirit of Pity whispered, ‘Why?’
325Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries
326
327These, in the day when heaven was falling,
328The hour when earth’s foundations fled,
329Followed their mercenary calling°
330And took their wages and are dead.°
331Their shoulders held the sky suspended;°
332They stood, and earth’s foundations stay;
333What God abandoned, these defended,
334And saved the sum of things for pay.
335
336Field Ambulance in Retreat
337
338Via Dolorosa, Via Sacra
339I
340A straight flagged road, laid on the rough earth,
341A causeway of stone from beautiful city to city,
342Between the tall trees, the slender, delicate trees,
343Through the flat green land, by plots of flowers, by black canals
344thick with heat.
345II
346The road-makers made it well
347Of fine stone, strong for the feet of the oxen and of the great
348Flemish horses,°
349And for the high waggons piled with corn from the harvest.
350But the labourers are few;
351They and their quiet oxen stand aside and wait
352By the long road loud with the passing of the guns, the rush of
353armoured cars and the tramp of an army on the march
354forward to battle;
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356
357And, where the piled corn-wagons went, our dripping
358Ambulance carries home
359Its red and white harvest from the fields.
360III
361The straight flagged road breaks into dust, into a thin white cloud,
362About the feet of a regiment driven back league by league,
363Rifles at trail, and standards wrapped in black funeral cloths.
364Unhasting, proud in retreat,
365They smile as the Red Cross Ambulance rushes by.°
366(You know nothing of beauty and of desolation who have not seen
367That smile of an army in retreat.)
368They go: and our shining, beckoning danger goes with them,
369And our joy in the harvests that we gathered in at nightfall in the
370fields;
37120
372
373And like an unloved hand laid on a beating heart
374Our safety weighs us down.
375Safety hard and strange; stranger and yet more hard
376As, league after dying league, the beautiful, desolate Land,
377Falls back from the intolerable speed of an Ambulance in retreat°
378On the sacred, dolorous Way.
379After the Retreat
380
381If I could only see again
382The house we passed on the long Flemish road°
383That day
384When the Army went from Antwerp, through Bruges, to the sea;
385The house with the slender door,
386And the one thin row of shutters, grey as dust on the white wall.
387It stood low and alone in the flat Flemish land,
388And behind it the high slender trees were small under the sky.
389It looked
390Through windows blurred like women’s eyes that have cried
391too long.
39210
393
394There is not anyone there whom I know,
395I have never sat by its hearth, I have never crossed its threshold,
396I have never opened its door,
397I have never sat by its windows looking in;
398Yet its eyes said: ‘You have seen four cities of Flanders:
399Ostend, and Bruges, and Antwerp under her doom,
400And the dear city of Ghent;°
401And there is none of them that you shall remember
402As you remember me.’
403I remember so well,
404That at night, at night I cannot sleep in England here;
40520
406
407But I get up, and I go:
408Not to the cities of Flanders,
409Not to Ostend and the sea,
410Not to the city of Bruges, or the city of Antwerp, or the city of
411Ghent,
412But somewhere
413In the fields,
414Where the high slender trees are small under the sky—
415If I could only see again
416The house we passed that day.
417Dedication
418
419(To a Field Ambulance in Flanders)
420I do not call you comrades,
421You,
422Who did what I only dreamed.
423Though you have taken my dream,
424And dressed yourselves in its beauty and its glory,
425Your faces are turned aside as you pass by.
426I am nothing to you,
427For I have done no more than dream.
428Your faces are like the face of her whom you follow,
429Danger,
43010
431
432The Beloved who looks backward as she runs, calling to her lovers,
433The Huntress who flies before her quarry, trailing her lure.°
434She called to me from her battle-places,
435She flung before me the curved lightning of her shells for a lure;
436And when I came within sight of her,
437She turned aside,
438And hid her face from me.
439But you she loved;
440You she touched with her hand;
441For you the white flames of her feet stayed in their running;
44220
443
444She kept you with her in her fields of Flanders,
445Where you go,
446Gathering your wounded from among her dead.
447Grey night falls on your going and black night on your returning.
448You go
449Under the thunder of the guns, the shrapnel’s rain and the curved
450lightning of the shells,
451And where the high towers are broken,
452And houses crack like the staves of a thin crate filled with fire;
453Into the mixing smoke and dust of roof and walls torn asunder
454You go;
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456
457And only my dream follows you.
458That is why I do not speak of you,
459Calling you by your names.°
460Your names are strung with the names of ruined and immortal
461cities,
462Termonde and Antwerp, Dixmude and Ypres and Furnes,°
463Like jewels on one chain—
464Thus,
465In the high places of Heaven,
466They shall tell all your names.
467March 8th, 1915.
468
469On Being Asked for a War Poem
470
471I think it better that in times like these
472A poet keep his mouth shut, for in truth°
473We have no gift to set a statesman right;
474He has had enough of meddling who can please
475A young girl in the indolence of her youth,
476Or an old man upon a winter’s night.
477An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
478
479I know that I shall meet my fate
480Somewhere among the clouds above;
481Those that I fight I do not hate,
482Those that I guard I do not love;
483My country is Kiltartan Cross,°
484My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
485No likely end could bring them loss
486Or leave them happier than before.
487Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
488Nor public man, nor angry crowds,°
48910
490
491A lonely impulse of delight
492Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
493I balanced all, brought all to mind,
494The years to come seemed waste of breath,
495A waste of breath the years behind
496In balance with this life, this death.
497
498‘For All We Have and Are’
499
5001914
501For all we have and are,
502For all our children’s fate,
503Stand up and take the war,
504The Hun is at the gate!°
505Our world has passed away,
506In wantonness o’erthrown.
507There is nothing left to-day
508But steel and fire and stone!
509Though all we knew depart,
510The old Commandments stand:—
51110
512
513‘In courage keep your heart,
514In strength lift up your hand.’
515Once more we hear the word
516That sickened earth of old:—
517‘No law except the Sword
518Unsheathed and uncontrolled.’
519Once more it knits mankind,
520Once more the nations go
521To meet and break and bind
522A crazed and driven foe.
52320
524
525Comfort, content, delight,
526The ages’ slow-bought gain,
527They shrivelled in a night.
528Only ourselves remain
529To face the naked days
530In silent fortitude,
531Through perils and dismays
532Renewed and re-renewed.
533Though all we made depart,
534The old Commandments stand:—
53530
536
537‘In patience keep your heart,
538In strength lift up your hand.’
539No easy hope or lies
540Shall bring us to our goal,
541But iron sacrifice
542Of body, will, and soul.
543There is but one task for all—
544One life for each to give.
545Who stands if Freedom fall?
546Who dies if England live?
54740
548‘Tin Fish’
549
550The ships destroy us above
551And ensnare us beneath.
552We arise, we lie down, and we move
553In the belly of Death.
554The ships have a thousand eyes
555To mark where we come . . .
556And the mirth of a seaport dies
557When our blow gets home.
558The Children
559
560These were our children who died for our lands: they were dear in our
561sight.
562We have only the memory left of their home-treasured sayings and
563laughter.
564The price of our loss shall be paid to our hands, not another’s hereafter.
565Neither the Alien nor Priest shall decide on it. That is our right.°
566But who shall return us the children?
567At the hour the Barbarian chose to disclose his pretences,
568And raged against Man, they engaged, on the breasts that they bared for us,
569The first felon-stroke of the sword he had long-time prepared for us—
570Their bodies were all our defence while we wrought our defences.
571They bought us anew with their blood, forbearing to blame us,
57210
573
574Those hours which we had not made good when the Judgment o’ercame us.
575They believed us and perished for it. Our statecraft, our learning
576Delivered them bound to the Pit and alive to the burning
577Whither they mirthfully hastened as jostling for honour.
578Not since her birth has our Earth seen such worth loosed upon her.
579Nor was their agony brief, or once only imposed on them.
580The wounded, the war-spent, the sick received no exemption:
581Being cured they returned and endured and achieved our redemption,
582Hopeless themselves of relief, till Death, marvelling, closed on them.
583That flesh we had nursed from the first in all cleanness was given
58420
585
586To corruption unveiled and assailed by the malice of Heaven—
587By the heart-shaking jests of Decay where it lolled on the wires—
588To be blanched or gay-painted by fumes—to be cindered by fires—°
589To be senselessly tossed and retossed in stale mutilation
590From crater to crater. For this we shall take expiation.°
591But who shall return us our children?
592‘The Trade’
593
594They bear, in place of classic names,
595Letters and numbers on their skin.°
596They plan their grisly blindfold games
597In little boxes made of tin.
598Sometimes they stalk the Zeppelin,°
599Sometimes they learn where mines are laid,
600Or where the Baltic ice is thin.°
601That is the custom of ‘The Trade.’
602Few prize-courts sit upon their claims.°
603They seldom tow their targets in.
60410
605
606They follow certain secret aims
607Down under, far from strife or din.
608When they are ready to begin
609No flag is flown, no fuss is made
610More than the shearing of a pin.°
611That is the custom of ‘The Trade.’
612The Scout’s quadruple funnel flames°
613A mark from Sweden to the Swin,°
614The Cruiser’s thunderous screw proclaims°
615Her comings out and goings in:
61620
617
618But only whiffs of paraffin
619Or creamy rings that fizz and fade
620Show where the one-eyed Death has been.°
621That is the custom of ‘The Trade.’
622Their feats, their fortunes and their fames
623Are hidden from their nearest kin;
624No eager public backs or blames,
625No journal prints the yarn they spin
626(The Censor would not let it in!)°
627When they return from run or raid.
62830
629
630Unheard they work, unseen they win.
631That is the custom of ‘The Trade.’
632My Boy Jack
633
634‘Have you news of my boy Jack?’
635Not this tide.
636‘When d’you think that he’ll come back?’
637Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.
638‘Has any one else had word of him?’
639Not this tide.
640For what is sunk will hardly swim,
641Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.
642‘Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?’
643None this tide,
64410
645
646Nor any tide,
647Except he did not shame his kind—
648Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide.
649Then hold your head up all the more,
650This tide,
651And every tide;
652Because he was the son you bore,
653And gave to that wind blowing and that tide!
654The Verdicts
655
656(Jutland)
657Not in the thick of the fight,
658Not in the press of the odds,
659Do the heroes come to their height,
660Or we know the demi-gods.
661That stands over till peace.
662We can only perceive
663Men returned from the seas,
664Very grateful for leave.
665They grant us sudden days
666Snatched from their business of war;
66710
668
669But we are too close to appraise
670What manner of men they are.
671And, whether their names go down
672With age-kept victories,
673Or whether they battle and drown
674Unreckoned, is hid from our eyes.
675They are too near to be great,
676But our children shall understand
677When and how our fate
678Was changed, and by whose hand.
67920
680
681Our children shall measure their worth.
682We are content to be blind . . .
683But we know that we walk on a new-born earth
684With the saviours of mankind.
685Mesopotamia
686
6871917
688They shall not return to us, the resolute, the young,
689The eager and whole-hearted whom we gave:
690But the men who left them thriftily to die in their own dung,
691Shall they come with years and honour to the grave?
692They shall not return to us, the strong men coldly slain
693In sight of help denied from day to day:
694But the men who edged their agonies and chid them in their pain,
695Are they too strong and wise to put away?
696Our dead shall not return to us while Day and Night divide—
697Never while the bars of sunset hold:
69810
699
700But the idle-minded overlings who quibbled while they died,
701Shall they thrust for high employments as of old?
702Shall we only threaten and be angry for an hour?
703When the storm is ended shall we find
704How softly but how swiftly they have sidled back to power
705By the favour and contrivance of their kind?°
706Even while they soothe us, while they promise large amends,
707Even while they make a show of fear,
708Do they call upon their debtors, and take counsel with their friends,
709To confirm and re-establish each career?
71020
711
712Their lives cannot repay us—their death could not undo—
713The shame that they have laid upon our race:
714But the slothfulness that wasted and the arrogance that slew,
715Shall we leave it unabated in its place?
716Gethsemane
717
718The Garden called Gethsemane
719In Picardy it was,°
720And there the people came to see
721The English soldiers pass.
722We used to pass—we used to pass
723Or halt, as it might be,
724And ship our masks in case of gas
725Beyond Gethsemane.
726The Garden called Gethsemane,
727It held a pretty lass,
72810
729
730But all the time she talked to me
731I prayed my cup might pass.°
732The officer sat on the chair,
733The men lay on the grass,
734And all the time we halted there
735I prayed my cup might pass—
736It didn’t pass—it didn’t pass—
737It didn’t pass from me.
738I drank it when we met the gas
739Beyond Gethsemane.
74020
741Epitaphs
742
743‘EQUALITY OF SACRIFICE’
744A. ‘I was a “have.” ’ B. ‘I was a “have-not.” ’
745(Together). ‘What hast thou given which I gave not?’
746A SERVANT
747We were together since the War began.
748He was my servant—and the better man.
749A SON
750My son was killed while laughing at some jest. I would I knew
751What it was, and it might serve me in a time when jests are few.
752AN ONLY SON
753I have slain none except my Mother. She
754(Blessing her slayer) died of grief for me.
755EX-CLERK
756Pity not! The Army gave
757Freedom to a timid slave:
758In which Freedom did he find
759Strength of body, will, and mind:
760By which strength he came to prove
761Mirth, Companionship, and Love:
762For which Love to Death he went:
763In which Death he lies content.
764THE WONDER
765Body and Spirit I surrendered whole
766To harsh Instructors—and received a soul . . .
767If mortal man could change me through and through
768From all I was—what may The God not do?
769HINDU SEPOY IN FRANCE°
770This man in his own country prayed we know not to what Powers.
771We pray Them to reward him for his bravery in ours.
772THE COWARD
773I could not look on Death, which being known,
774Men led me to him, blindfold and alone.
775SHOCK
776My name, my speech, my self I had forgot.
777My wife and children came—I knew them not.
778I died. My Mother followed. At her call
779And on her bosom I remembered all.
780A GRAVE NEAR CAIRO°
781Gods of the Nile, should this stout fellow here°
782Get out—get out! He knows not shame nor fear.
783PELICANS IN THE WILDERNESS (A GRAVE NEAR HALFA)°
784The blown sand heaps on me, that none may learn
785Where I am laid for whom my children grieve . . .
786O wings that beat at dawning, ye return
787Out of the desert to your young at eve!
788THE FAVOUR
789Death favoured me from the first, well knowing I could not
790endure
791To wait on him day by day. He quitted my betters and came
792Whistling over the fields, and, when he had made all sure,
793‘Thy line is at end,’ he said, ‘but at least I have saved its name.’
794THE BEGINNER
795On the first hour of my first day
796In the front trench I fell.
797(Children in boxes at a play
798Stand up to watch it well.)
799R. A. F. (AGED EIGHTEEN)
800Laughing through clouds, his milk-teeth still unshed,
801Cities and men he smote from overhead.
802His deaths delivered, he returned to play
803Childlike, with childish things now put away.
804THE REFINED MAN
805I was of delicate mind. I went aside for my needs,
806Disdaining the common office. I was seen from afar and killed . . .
807How is this matter for mirth? Let each man be judged by his deeds.
808I have paid my price to live with myself on the terms that I willed.
809NATIVE WATER-CARRIER (M. E. F.)°
810Prometheus brought down fire to men.°
811This brought up water.
812The Gods are jealous—now, as then,
813They gave no quarter.
814BOMBED IN LONDON°
815On land and sea I strove with anxious care
816To escape conscription. It was in the air!
817THE SLEEPY SENTINEL°
818Faithless the watch that I kept: now I have none to keep.
819I was slain because I slept: now I am slain I sleep.
820Let no man reproach me again, whatever watch is unkept—
821I sleep because I am slain. They slew me because I slept.
822BATTERIES OUT OF AMMUNITION
823If any mourn us in the workshop, say
824We died because the shift kept holiday.
825COMMON FORM
826If any question why we died,
827Tell them, because our fathers lied.
828A DEAD STATESMAN
829I could not dig: I dared not rob:
830Therefore I lied to please the mob.
831Now all my lies are proved untrue,
832And I must face the men I slew.
833What tale shall save me here among
834Mine angry and defrauded young?
835THE REBEL
836If I had clamoured at Thy Gate
837For gift of Life on Earth,
838And, thrusting through the souls that wait,
839Flung headlong into birth—
840Even then, even then, for gin and snare
841About my pathway spread,
842Lord, I had mocked Thy thoughtful care
843Before I joined the Dead!
844But now? . . . I was beneath Thy Hand
845Ere yet the Planets came.
84610
847
848And now—though Planets pass, I stand
849The witness to Thy Shame.
850THE OBEDIENT
851Daily, though no ears attended,
852Did my prayers arise.
853Daily, though no fire descended
854Did I sacrifice . . .
855Though my darkness did not lift,
856Though I faced no lighter odds,
857Though the Gods bestowed no gift,
858None the less,
859None the less, I served the Gods!
860A DRIFTER OFF TARENTUM°
861He from the wind-bitten north with ship and companions descended,
862Searching for eggs of death spawned by invisible hulls.°
863Many he found and drew forth. Of a sudden the fishery ended
864In flame and a clamorous breath not new to the eye-pecking gulls.
865DESTROYERS IN COLLISION
866For Fog and Fate no charm is found
867To lighten or amend.
868I, hurrying to my bride, was drowned—
869Cut down by my best friend.
870CONVOY ESCORT
871I was a shepherd to fools
872Causelessly bold or afraid.
873They would not abide by my rules.
874Yet they escaped. For I stayed.
875UNKNOWN FEMALE CORPSE
876Headless, lacking foot and hand,
877Horrible I come to land.
878I beseech all women’s sons
879Know I was a mother once.
880RAPED AND REVENGED
881One used and butchered me: another spied
882Me broken—for which thing a hundred died.
883So it was learned among the heathen hosts
884How much a freeborn woman’s favour costs.
885SALONIKAN GRAVE°
886I have watched a thousand days
887Push out and crawl into night
888Slowly as tortoises.
889Now I, too, follow these.
890It is fever, and not fight—
891Time, not battle—that slays.
892THE BRIDEGROOM
893Call me not false, beloved,
894If, from thy scarce-known breast
895So little time removed,
896In other arms I rest.
897For this more ancient bride
898Whom coldly I embrace
899Was constant at my side
900Before I saw thy face.
901Our marriage, often set—
902By miracle delayed—
90310
904
905At last is consummate,
906And cannot be unmade.
907Live, then, whom Life shall cure,
908Almost, of Memory,
909And leave us to endure
910Its immortality.
911V. A. D. (MEDITERRANEAN)°
912Ah, would swift ships had never been, for then we ne’er had found,
913These harsh Ægean rocks between, this little virgin drowned,°
914Whom neither spouse nor child shall mourn, but men she nursed through pain
915And—certain keels for whose return the heathen look in vain.
916A Death-Bed
917
918‘This is the State above the Law.
919The State exists for the State alone.’°
920[This is a gland at the back of the jaw,
921And an answering lump by the collar-bone.]
922Some die shouting in gas or fire;
923Some die silent, by shell and shot.
924Some die desperate, caught on the wire;
925Some die suddenly. This will not.
926‘Regis suprema Voluntas lex’°
927[It will follow the regular course of—throats.]
92810
929
930Some die pinned by the broken decks,
931Some die sobbing between the boats.
932Some die eloquent, pressed to death
933By the sliding trench, as their friends can hear.
934Some die wholly in half a breath.
935Some—give trouble for half a year.
936‘There is neither Evil nor Good in life
937Except as the needs of the State ordain.’
938[Since it is rather too late for the knife,
939All we can do is to mask the pain.]
94020
941
942Some die saintly in faith and hope—
943One died thus in a prison-yard—
944Some die broken by rape or the rope;
945Some die easily. This dies hard.
946‘I will dash to pieces who bar my way.
947Woe to the traitor! Woe to the weak!’
948[Let him write what he wishes to say.
949It tires him out if he tries to speak.]
950Some die quietly. Some abound
951In loud self-pity. Others spread
95230
953
954Bad morale through the cots around . . .°
955This is a type that is better dead.
956‘The war was forced on me by my foes.
957All that I sought was the right to live.’
958[Don’t be afraid of a triple dose;
959The pain will neutralize half we give.
960Here are the needles. See that he dies
961While the effects of the drug endure . . .
962What is the question he asks with his eyes?—
963Yes, All-Highest, to God, be sure.]
96440
965Justice
966
967October 1918
968Across a world where all men grieve
969And grieving strive the more,
970The great days range like tides and leave
971Our dead on every shore.
972Heavy the load we undergo,
973And our own hands prepare,
974If we have parley with the foe,
975The load our sons must bear.
976Before we loose the word
977That bids new worlds to birth,
97810
979
980Needs must we loosen first the sword
981Of Justice upon earth;
982Or else all else is vain
983Since life on earth began,
984And the spent world sinks back again
985Hopeless of God and Man.
986A people and their King
987Through ancient sin grown strong,
988Because they feared no reckoning
989Would set no bound to wrong;
99020
991
992But now their hour is past,
993And we who bore it find
994Evil Incarnate held at last
995To answer to mankind.
996For agony and spoil
997Of nations beat to dust,
998For poisoned air and tortured soil
999And cold, commanded lust,
1000And every secret woe
1001The shuddering waters saw—
100230
1003
1004Willed and fulfilled by high and low—
1005Let them relearn the Law.
1006That when the dooms are read,
1007Not high nor low shall say:—
1008‘My haughty or my humble head
1009Has saved me in this day.’
1010That, till the end of time,
1011Their remnant shall recall
1012Their fathers’ old, confederate crime
1013Availed them not at all.
101440
1015
1016That neither schools nor priests,
1017Nor Kings may build again
1018A people with the heart of beasts
1019Made wise concerning men.°
1020Whereby our dead shall sleep
1021In honour, unbetrayed,
1022And we in faith and honour keep
1023That peace for which they paid.
1024The Changelings
1025
1026Or ever the battered liners sank
1027With their passengers to the dark,
1028I was head of a Walworth Bank,°
1029And you were a grocer’s clerk.°
1030I was a dealer in stocks and shares,°
1031And you in butters and teas,
1032And we both abandoned our own affairs
1033And took to the dreadful seas.
1034Wet and worry about our ways—
1035Panic, onset, and flight—
103610
1037
1038Had us in charge for a thousand days
1039And a thousand-year-long night.
1040We saw more than the nights could hide—
1041More than the waves could keep—
1042And—certain faces over the side
1043Which do not go from our sleep.
1044We were more tired than words can tell
1045While the pied craft fled by,°
1046And the swinging mounds of the Western swell
104720
1048
1049Hoisted us Heavens-high . . .
1050Now there is nothing—not even our rank—
1051To witness what we have been;
1052And I am returned to my Walworth Bank,
1053And you to your margarine!
1054The Vineyard
1055
1056At the eleventh hour he came,
1057But his wages were the same
1058As ours who all day long had trod
1059The wine-press of the Wrath of God.
1060When he shouldered through the lines
1061Of our cropped and mangled vines,
1062His unjaded eye could scan
1063How each hour had marked its man.
1064(Children of the morning-tide
1065With the hosts of noon had died;
106610
1067
1068And our noon contingents lay
1069Dead with twilight’s spent array.)
1070Since his back had felt no load,
1071Virtue still in him abode;
1072So he swiftly made his own
1073Those last spoils we had not won.
1074We went home, delivered thence,
1075Grudging him no recompense
1076Till he portioned praise or blame
1077To our works before he came.
107820
1079
1080Till he showed us for our good—
1081Deaf to mirth, and blind to scorn—
1082How we might have best withstood
1083Burdens that he had not borne!
1084
1085For the Fallen
1086
1087With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
1088England mourns for her dead across the sea.
1089Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
1090Fallen in the cause of the free.
1091Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
1092Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
1093There is music in the midst of desolation
1094And a glory that shines upon our tears.
1095They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
1096Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
109710
1098
1099They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
1100They fell with their faces to the foe.
1101They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
1102Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.°
1103At the going down of the sun and in the morning
1104We will remember them.
1105They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
1106They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
1107They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
1108They sleep beyond England’s foam.
110920
1110
1111But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
1112Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
1113To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
1114As the stars are known to the Night;
1115As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust
1116Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
1117As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
1118To the end, to the end, they remain.
1119
1120May, 1915
1121
1122Let us remember Spring will come again
1123To the scorched, blackened woods, where all the wounded trees
1124Wait, with their old wise patience for the heavenly rain,
1125Sure of the sky: sure of the sea to send its healing breeze,
1126Sure of the sun. And even as to these
1127Surely the Spring, when God shall please
1128Will come again like a divine surprise
1129To those who sit to-day with their great Dead, hands in their hands, eyes in their eyes,
1130At one with Love, at one with Grief: blind to the scattered things and changing skies.
1131June, 1915
1132
1133Who thinks of June’s first rose to-day?°
1134Only some child, perhaps, with shining eyes and rough bright hair will reach it down
1135In a green sunny lane, to us almost as far away
1136As are the fearless stars from these veiled lamps of town.°
1137What’s little June to a great broken world with eyes gone dim
1138From too much looking on the face of grief, the face of dread?
1139Or what’s the broken world to June and him
1140Of the small eager hand, the shining eyes, the rough bright head?
1141The Cenotaph
1142
1143Not yet will those measureless fields be green again
1144Where only yesterday the wild sweet blood of wonderful youth was shed;
1145There is a grave whose earth must hold too long, too deep a stain,
1146Though for ever over it we may speak as proudly as we may tread.
1147But here, where the watchers by lonely hearths from the thrust of
1148an inward sword have more slowly bled,
1149We shall build the Cenotaph: Victory, winged, with Peace, winged too, at the column’s head.°
1150And over the stairway, at the foot—oh! here, leave desolate, passionate hands to spread
1151Violets, roses, and laurel, with the small sweet twinkling country things
1152Speaking so wistfully of other Springs
1153From the little gardens of little places where son or sweetheart was born and bred.
115410
1155
1156In splendid sleep, with a thousand brothers
1157To lovers—to mothers
1158Here, too, lies he:
1159Under the purple, the green, the red,
1160It is all young life: it must break some women’s hearts to see
1161Such a brave, gay coverlet to such a bed!
1162Only, when all is done and said,
1163God is not mocked and neither are the dead.°
1164For this will stand in our Market-place—
1165Who’ll sell, who’ll buy
116620
1167
1168(Will you or I
1169Lie each to each with the better grace)?
1170While looking into every busy whore’s and huckster’s face°
1171As they drive their bargains, is the Face
1172Of God: and some young, piteous, murdered face.
1173
1174Tipperary Days
1175
1176Oh, weren’t they the fine boys! You never saw the beat of them,
1177Singing all together with their throats bronze-bare;
1178Fighting-fit and mirth-mad, music in the feet of them,
1179Swinging on to glory and the wrath out there.
1180Laughing by and chaffing by, frolic in the smiles of them,°
1181On the road, the white road, all the afternoon;
1182Strangers in a strange land, miles and miles and miles of them,°
1183Battle-bound and heart-high, and singing this tune:
1184It’s a long way to Tipperary,
1185It’s a long way to go;
118610
1187
1188It’s a long way to Tipperary,
1189And the sweetest girl I know.
1190Good-bye to Piccadilly,
1191Farewell, Lester Square:
1192It’s a long, long way to Tipperary,
1193But my heart’s right there.°
1194Come, Yvonne and Juliette! Come, Mimi, and cheer for them!
1195Throw them flowers and kisses as they pass you by.
1196Aren’t they the lovely lads! Haven’t you a tear for them
1197Going out so gallantly to dare and die?
119820
1199
1200What is it they’re singing so? Some high hymn of Motherland?
1201Some immortal chanson of their Faith and King?
1202Marseillaise or Brabançon, anthem of that other land,°
1203Dears, let us remember it, that song they sing:—
1204‘C’est un chemin long “to Tepararee,”
1205C’est un chemin long, c’est vrai;
1206C’est un chemin long “to Tepararee,”
1207Et la belle fille qu’je connais.
1208Bonjour, Peekadeely!
1209Au revoir, Lestaire Square!
121030
1211
1212C’est un chemin long “to Tepararee,”
1213Mais mon coeur “ees zaire.” ’°
1214The gallant old ‘Contemptibles!’ There isn’t much remains of them,°
1215So full of fun and fitness, and a-singing in their pride;
1216For some are cold as clabber and the corby picks the brains of them,°
1217And some are back in Blighty, and a-wishing they had died.°
1218And yet it seems but yesterday, that great, glad sight of them,
1219Swinging on to battle as the sky grew black and black;
1220But oh their glee and glory, and the great, grim fight of them!—
1221Just whistle Tipperary and it all comes back:
122240
1223
1224It’s a long way to Tipperary
1225(Which means ‘ ’ome’ anywhere);
1226It’s a long way to Tipperary
1227(And the things wot make you care).
1228Good-bye, Piccadilly
1229(’Ow I ’opes my folks is well);
1230It’s a long, long way to Tipperary—
1231(’R! Ain’t War just ’ell?)
1232Only a Boche
1233
1234We brought him in from between the lines: we’d better have let
1235him lie;
1236For what’s the use of risking one’s skin for a tyke that’s going
1237to die?°
1238What’s the use of tearing him loose under a gruelling fire,
1239When he’s shot in the head, and worse than dead, and all messed
1240up on the wire?
1241However, I say, we brought him in. Diable! The mud was bad;°
1242The trench was crooked and greasy and high, and oh, what a time
1243we had!
1244And often we slipped, and often we tripped, but never he made
1245a moan;
1246And how we were wet with blood and with sweat! but we carried
1247him in like our own.
1248Now there he lies in the dug-out dim, awaiting the ambulance,
1249And the doctor shrugs his shoulders at him, and remarks ‘he
1250hasn’t a chance.’
125110
1252
1253And we squat and smoke at our game of bridge on the glistening,
1254straw-packed floor,
1255And above our oaths we can hear his breath deep-drawn in a kind
1256of snore.
1257For the dressing station is long and low, and the candles gutter dim,
1258And the mean light falls on the cold clay walls and our faces bristly
1259and grim;
1260And we flap our cards on the lousy straw, and we laugh and jibe as
1261we play,
1262And you’d never know that the cursed foe was less than a mile away.
1263As we con our cards in the rancid gloom, oppressed by that snoring
1264breath,°
1265You’d never dream that our broad roof-beam was swept by the
1266broom of death.
1267Heigh-ho! My turn for the dummy hand; I rise and I stretch a bit;°
1268The fetid air is making me yawn, and my cigarette’s unlit,
126920
1270
1271So I go to the nearest candle flame, and the man we brought
1272is there,
1273And his face is white in the shabby light, and I stand at his feet and
1274stare.
1275Stand for awhile, and quietly stare, for strange though it seems
1276to be,
1277The dying Boche on the stretcher there has a queer resemblance
1278to me.
1279It gives one a kind of a turn, you know, to come on a thing like that.
1280It’s just as if I were lying there, with a turban of blood for a hat,
1281Lying there in a coat grey-green instead of a coat grey-blue,°
1282With one of my eyes all shot away, and my brain half tumbling
1283through;
1284Lying there with a chest that heaves like a bellows up and down,
1285And a cheek as white as snow on a grave, and lips that are coffee
1286brown.
128730
1288
1289And confound him, too! He wears like me on his finger a wedding
1290ring,
1291And around his neck, as around my own, by a greasy bit of string,
1292A locket hangs with a woman’s face, and I turn it about to see:
1293Just as I thought . . . on the other side the faces of children three;
1294Clustered together cherub-like three little laughing girls,
1295With the usual tiny rosebud mouths and the usual silken curls.
1296‘Zut!’ I say. ‘He has beaten me; for me, I have only two,’°
1297And I push the locket beneath his shirt, feeling a little blue.
1298Oh, it isn’t cheerful to see a man, the marvellous work of God,
1299Crushed in the mutilation mill, crushed to a smeary clod;
130040
1301
1302Oh, it isn’t cheerful to hear him moan; but it isn’t that I mind,
1303It isn’t the anguish that goes with him, it’s the anguish he leaves
1304behind.
1305For his going opens a tragic door that gives on a world of pain,
1306And the death he dies, those who live and love, will die again and
1307again.
1308So here I am at my cards once more, but it’s kind of spoiling my play,
1309Thinking of those three brats of his so many a mile away.
1310War is war, and he’s only a Boche, and we all of us take our chance;
1311But all the same I’ll be mighty glad when I’m hearing the
1312ambulance.
1313One foe the less, but all the same I’m heartily glad I’m not
1314The man who gave him his broken head, the sniper who fired the shot.
131550
1316
1317No trumps you make it, I think you said? You’ll pardon me if I err;
1318For a moment I thought of other things . . . Mon Dieu! Quelle vache
1319de guerre.°
1320Tri-colour
1321
1322Poppies, you try to tell me, glowing there in the wheat;
1323Poppies! Ah no! You mock me: It’s blood, I tell you, it’s blood.
1324It’s gleaming wet in the grasses; it’s glist’ning warm in the wheat;
1325It dabbles the ferns and the clover; it brims in an angry flood;°
1326It leaps to the startled heavens; it smothers the sun; it cries
1327
1328With scarlet voices of triumph from blossom and bough and blade.
1329See, the bright horror of it! It’s roaring out of the skies,
1330And the whole red world is a-welter . . . Oh God! I’m afraid!
1331I’m afraid!°
1332Cornflowers, you say, just cornflowers, gemming the golden grain;
1333Ah no! You can’t deceive me. Can’t I believe my eyes?
133410
1335
1336Look! It’s the dead, my comrades, stark on the dreadful plain,
1337All in their dark-blue blouses, staring up at the skies.°
1338Comrades of canteen laughter, dumb in the yellow wheat.
1339See how they sprawl and huddle! See how their brows are white!
1340Goaded on to the shambles, there in death and defeat . . .
1341Father of Pity, hide them! Hasten, O God, Thy night!
1342Lilies (the light is waning), only lilies you say,
1343Nestling and softly shining there where the spear-grass waves.
1344No, my friend, I know better; brighter I see than day:
1345It’s the poor little wooden crosses over their quiet graves.
134620
1347
1348Oh, how they’re gleaming, gleaming! See! Each cross has a crown.
1349Yes, it’s true I am dying; little will be the loss . . .
1350Darkness . . . but look! In Heaven a light, and it’s shining down . . .
1351God’s accolade! Lift me up, friends. I’m going to win—my Cross.
1352
1353A Private
1354
1355This ploughman dead in battle slept out of doors
1356Many a frosty night, and merrily
1357Answered staid drinkers, good bedmen, and all bores:
1358‘At Mrs Greenland’s Hawthorn Bush,’ said he,°
1359‘I slept.’ None knew which bush. Above the town,
1360Beyond ‘The Drover’, a hundred spot the down°
1361In Wiltshire. And where now at last he sleeps°
1362More sound in France—that, too, he secret keeps.
1363The Owl
1364
1365Downhill I came, hungry, and yet not starved;
1366Cold, yet had heat within me that was proof
1367Against the North wind; tired, yet so that rest
1368Had seemed the sweetest thing under a roof.
1369Then at the inn I had food, fire, and rest,
1370Knowing how hungry, cold, and tired was I.
1371All of the night was quite barred out except
1372An owl’s cry, a most melancholy cry
1373Shaken out long and clear upon the hill,
1374No merry note, nor cause of merriment,
137510
1376
1377But one telling me plain what I escaped
1378And others could not, that night, as in I went.
1379And salted was my food, and my repose,
1380Salted and sobered, too, by the bird’s voice°
1381Speaking for all who lay under the stars,
1382Soldiers and poor, unable to rejoice.
1383In Memoriam (Easter, 1915)
1384
1385The flowers left thick at nightfall in the wood
1386This Eastertide call into mind the men,
1387Now far from home, who, with their sweethearts, should
1388Have gathered them and will do never again.
1389This is no case of petty right or wrong
1390
1391This is no case of petty right or wrong
1392That politicians or philosophers
1393Can judge. I hate not Germans, nor grow hot
1394With love of Englishmen, to please newspapers.
1395Beside my hate for one fat patriot
1396My hatred of the Kaiser is love true:—°
1397A kind of god he is, banging a gong.
1398But I have not to choose between the two,
1399Or between justice and injustice. Dinned
1400With war and argument I read no more
140110
1402
1403Than in the storm smoking along the wind
1404Athwart the wood. Two witches’ cauldrons roar.°
1405From one the weather shall rise clear and gay;
1406Out of the other an England beautiful
1407And like her mother that died yesterday.
1408Little I know or care if, being dull,
1409I shall miss something that historians
1410Can rake out of the ashes when perchance
1411The phoenix broods serene above their ken.°
1412But with the best and meanest Englishmen
141320
1414
1415I am one in crying, God save England, lest
1416We lose what never slaves and cattle blessed.°
1417The ages made her that made us from the dust:
1418She is all we know and live by, and we trust
1419She is good and must endure, loving her so:
1420And as we love ourselves we hate her foe.
1421Rain
1422
1423Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain
1424On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me°
1425Remembering again that I shall die
1426And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks
1427For washing me cleaner than I have been
1428Since I was born into this solitude.
1429Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon:
1430But here I pray that none whom once I loved
1431Is dying tonight or lying still awake
1432Solitary, listening to the rain,
143310
1434
1435Either in pain or thus in sympathy
1436Helpless among the living and the dead,
1437Like a cold water among broken reeds,
1438Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff,
1439Like me who have no love which this wild rain
1440Has not dissolved except the love of death,°
1441If love it be towards what is perfect and
1442Cannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint.
1443Roads
1444
1445I love roads:
1446The goddesses that dwell
1447Far along invisible
1448Are my favourite gods.
1449Roads go on
1450While we forget, and are
1451Forgotten like a star
1452That shoots and is gone.
1453On this earth ’tis sure
1454We men have not made
145510
1456
1457Anything that doth fade
1458So soon, so long endure:
1459The hill road wet with rain
1460In the sun would not gleam
1461Like a winding stream
1462If we trod it not again.
1463They are lonely
1464While we sleep, lonelier
1465For lack of the traveller
1466Who is now a dream only.
146720
1468
1469From dawn’s twilight
1470And all the clouds like sheep
1471On the mountains of sleep
1472They wind into the night.
1473The next turn may reveal
1474Heaven: upon the crest
1475The close pine clump, at rest
1476And black, may Hell conceal.
1477Often footsore, never
1478Yet of the road I weary,
147930
1480
1481Though long and steep and dreary
1482As it winds on for ever.
1483Helen of the roads,
1484The mountain ways of Wales
1485And the Mabinogion tales,
1486Is one of the true gods,°
1487Abiding in the trees,
1488The threes and fours so wise,
1489The larger companies,
1490That by the roadside be,
149140
1492
1493And beneath the rafter
1494Else uninhabited
1495Excepting by the dead:
1496And it is her laughter
1497At morn and night I hear
1498When the thrush cock sings
1499Bright irrelevant things,
1500And when the chanticleer°
1501Calls back to their own night
1502Troops that make loneliness
150350
1504
1505With their light footsteps’ press,
1506As Helen’s own are light.
1507Now all roads lead to France
1508And heavy is the tread
1509Of the living; but the dead
1510Returning lightly dance:
1511Whatever the road bring
1512To me or take from me,
1513They keep me company
1514With their pattering,
151560
1516
1517Crowding the solitude
1518Of the loops over the downs,
1519Hushing the roar of towns
1520And their brief multitude.
1521The Cherry Trees
1522
1523The cherry trees bend over and are shedding
1524On the old road where all that passed are dead,
1525Their petals, strewing the grass as for a wedding
1526This early May morn when there is none to wed.
1527No one cares less than I
1528
1529‘No one cares less than I,
1530Nobody knows but God,
1531Whether I am destined to lie
1532Under a foreign clod,’
1533Were the words I made to the bugle call in the morning.
1534But laughing, storming, scorning,
1535Only the bugles know
1536What the bugles say in the morning,
1537And they do not care, when they blow
1538The call that I heard and made words to early this morning.
153910
1540As the team’s head-brass
1541
1542As the team’s head-brass flashed out on the turn°
1543The lovers disappeared into the wood.
1544I sat among the boughs of the fallen elm
1545That strewed an angle of the fallow, and°
1546Watched the plough narrowing a yellow square
1547Of charlock. Every time the horses turned°
1548Instead of treading me down, the ploughman leaned
1549Upon the handles to say or ask a word,
1550About the weather, next about the war.
1551Scraping the share he faced towards the wood,°
155210
1553
1554And screwed along the furrow till the brass flashed
1555Once more.
1556The blizzard felled the elm whose crest
1557I sat in, by a woodpecker’s round hole,
1558The ploughman said. ‘When will they take it away?’
1559‘When the war’s over.’ So the talk began—
1560One minute and an interval of ten,
1561A minute more and the same interval.
1562‘Have you been out?’ ‘No.’ ‘And don’t want to, perhaps?’
1563‘If I could only come back again, I should.
1564I could spare an arm. I shouldn’t want to lose
156520
1566
1567A leg. If I should lose my head, why, so,
1568I should want nothing more . . . Have many gone°
1569From here?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Many lost?’ ‘Yes: a good few.
1570Only two teams work on the farm this year.
1571One of my mates is dead. The second day
1572In France they killed him. It was back in March,
1573The very night of the blizzard, too. Now if
1574He had stayed here we should have moved the tree.’
1575‘And I should not have sat here. Everything
1576Would have been different. For it would have been
157730
1578
1579Another world.’ ‘Ay, and a better, though
1580If we could see all all might seem good.’ Then
1581The lovers came out of the wood again:
1582The horses started and for the last time
1583I watched the clods crumble and topple over
1584After the ploughshare and the stumbling team.
1585The Trumpet
1586
1587Rise up, rise up,
1588And, as the trumpet blowing
1589Chases the dreams of men,
1590As the dawn glowing
1591The stars that left unlit
1592The land and water,
1593Rise up and scatter
1594The dew that covers
1595The print of last night’s lovers—
1596Scatter it, scatter it!
159710
1598
1599While you are listening
1600To the clear horn,
1601Forget, men, everything
1602On this earth newborn,
1603Except that it is lovelier
1604Than any mysteries.
1605Open your eyes to the air
1606That has washed the eyes of the stars
1607Through all the dewy night:
1608Up with the light,
160920
1610
1611To the old wars;
1612Arise, arise!
1613
1614The Messages
1615
1616‘I cannot quite remember . . . There were five
1617Dropt dead beside me in the trench—and three
1618Whispered their dying messages to me . . .’
1619Back from the trenches, more dead than alive,
1620Stone-deaf and dazed, and with a broken knee,
1621He hobbled slowly, muttering vacantly:
1622‘I cannot quite remember . . . There were five
1623Dropt dead beside me in the trench, and three
1624Whispered their dying messages to me . . .
1625‘Their friends are waiting, wondering how they thrive—
162610
1627
1628Waiting a word in silence patiently . . .
1629But what they said, or who their friends may be
1630‘I cannot quite remember . . . There were five
1631Dropt dead beside me in the trench—and three
1632Whispered their dying messages to me . . .’
1633Breakfast
1634
1635We ate our breakfast lying on our backs,
1636Because the shells were screeching overhead.
1637I bet a rasher to a loaf of bread
1638That Hull United would beat Halifax°
1639When Jimmy Stainthorp played full-back instead
1640Of Billy Bradford. Ginger raised his head
1641And cursed, and took the bet; and dropt back dead.
1642We ate our breakfast lying on our backs,
1643Because the shells were screeching overhead.
1644Hit
1645
1646Out of the sparkling sea
1647I drew my tingling body clear, and lay
1648On a low ledge the livelong summer day,
1649Basking, and watching lazily
1650White sails in Falmouth Bay.°
1651My body seemed to burn
1652Salt in the sun that drenched it through and through
1653Till every particle glowed clean and new
1654And slowly seemed to turn
1655To lucent amber in a world of blue . . .°
165610
1657
1658I felt a sudden wrench—
1659A trickle of warm blood—
1660And found that I was sprawling in the mud
1661Among the dead men in the trench.
1662Between the Lines
1663
1664When consciousness came back, he found he lay
1665Between the opposing fires, but could not tell
1666On which hand were his friends; and either way
1667For him to turn was chancy—bullet and shell
1668Whistling and shrieking over him, as the glare
1669Of searchlights scoured the darkness to blind day.
1670He scrambled to his hands and knees ascare,°
1671Dragging his wounded foot through puddled clay,
1672And tumbled in a hole a shell had scooped
1673At random in a turnip-field between
167410
1675
1676The unseen trenches where the foes lay cooped
1677Through that unending battle of unseen,
1678Dead-locked, league-stretching armies; and quite spent
1679He rolled upon his back within the pit,
1680And lay secure, thinking of all it meant—
1681His lying in that little hole, sore hit,
1682But living, while across the starry sky
1683Shrapnel and shell went screeching overhead—
1684Of all it meant that he, Tom Dodd, should lie
1685Among the Belgian turnips, while his bed . . .
168620
1687
1688If it were he, indeed, who’d climbed each night,
1689Fagged with the day’s work, up the narrow stair,
1690And slipt his clothes off in the candle-light,
1691Too tired to fold them neatly on a chair
1692The way his mother’d taught him—too dog-tired
1693After the long day’s serving in the shop,
1694Inquiring what each customer required,
1695Politely talking weather, fit to drop . . .
1696And now for fourteen days and nights, at least,
1697He hadn’t had his clothes off, and had lain
169830
1699
1700In muddy trenches, napping like a beast
1701With one eye open, under sun and rain
1702And that unceasing hell-fire . . .
1703It was strange
1704How things turned out—the chances! You’d just got
1705To take your luck in life, you couldn’t change
1706Your luck.
1707And so here he was lying shot
1708Who just six months ago had thought to spend
1709His days behind a counter. Still, perhaps . . .
1710And now, God only knew how he would end!
1711He’ld like to know how many of the chaps
171240
1713
1714Had won back to the trench alive, when he
1715Had fallen wounded and been left for dead,
1716If any! . . .
1717This was different, certainly,
1718From selling knots of tape and reels of thread
1719And knots of tape and reels of thread and knots
1720Of tape and reels of thread and knots of tape,
1721Day in, day out, and answering ‘Have you got’s
1722And ‘Do you keep’s, till there seemed no escape
1723From everlasting serving in a shop,
1724Inquiring what each customer required,
172550
1726
1727Politely talking weather, fit to drop,
1728With swollen ankles, tired . . .
1729But he was tired
1730Now. Every bone was aching, and had ached
1731For fourteen days and nights in that wet trench—
1732Just duller when he slept than when he waked—
1733Crouching for shelter from the steady drench
1734Of shell and shrapnel . . .
1735That old trench, it seemed
1736Almost like home to him. He’d slept and fed
1737And sung and smoked in it, while shrapnel screamed
1738And shells went whining harmless overhead—
173960
1740
1741Harmless, at least, as far as he . . .
1742But Dick—
1743Dick hadn’t found them harmless yesterday,
1744At breakfast, when he’d said he couldn’t stick
1745Eating dry bread, and crawled out the back way,
1746And brought them butter in a lordly dish—
1747Butter enough for all, and held it high,
1748Yellow and fresh and clean as you could wish—
1749When plump upon the plate from out the sky
1750A shell fell bursting . . . Where the butter went,
1751God only knew! . . .
1752And Dick . . . He dared not think
175370
1754
1755Of what had come to Dick . . . or what it meant—
1756The shrieking and the whistling and the stink
1757He’d lived in fourteen days and nights. ’Twas luck
1758That he still lived . . . And queer how little then
1759He seemed to care that Dick . . . Perhaps ’twas pluck
1760That hardened him—a man among the men—
1761Perhaps . . . Yet, only think things out a bit,
1762And he was rabbit-livered, blue with funk!°
1763And he’d liked Dick . . . and yet when Dick was hit,
1764He hadn’t turned a hair. The meanest skunk
176580
1766
1767He should have thought would feel it when his mate
1768Was blown to smithereens—Dick, proud as punch,
1769Grinning like sin, and holding up the plate—
1770But he had gone on munching his dry hunch,°
1771Unwinking, till he swallowed the last crumb.
1772Perhaps ’twas just because he dared not let
1773His mind run upon Dick, who’d been his chum.
1774He dared not now, though he could not forget.
1775Dick took his luck. And, life or death, ’twas luck
1776From first to last; and you’d just got to trust
177790
1778
1779Your luck and grin. It wasn’t so much pluck
1780As knowing that you’d got to, when needs must,
1781And better to die grinning . . .
1782Quiet now
1783Had fallen on the night. On either hand
1784The guns were quiet. Cool upon his brow
1785The quiet darkness brooded, as he scanned
1786The starry sky. He’d never seen before
1787So many stars. Although, of course, he’d known
1788That there were stars, somehow before the war
1789He’d never realised them—so thick-sown,
1790100
1791
1792Millions and millions. Serving in the shop,
1793Stars didn’t count for much; and then at nights
1794Strolling the pavements, dull and fit to drop,
1795You didn’t see much but the city lights.
1796He’d never in his life seen so much sky
1797As he’d seen this last fortnight. It was queer
1798The things war taught you. He’d a mind to try
1799To count the stars—they shone so bright and clear.
1800One, two, three, four . . . Ah, God, but he was tired . . .
1801Five, six, seven, eight . . .
1802Yes, it was number eight.
1803110
1804
1805And what was the next thing that she required?
1806(Too bad of customers to come so late,
1807At closing-time!) Again within the shop
1808He handled knots of tape and reels of thread,
1809Politely talking weather, fit to drop . . .
1810When once again the whole sky overhead
1811Flared blind with searchlights, and the shriek of shell
1812And scream of shrapnel roused him. Drowsily
1813He stared about him wondering. Then he fell
1814Into deep dreamless slumber.
1815* * * * *
1816He could see
1817120
1818
1819Two dark eyes peeping at him, ere he knew
1820He was awake, and it again was day—
1821An August morning burning to clear blue.
1822The frightened rabbit scuttled . . .
1823Far away,
1824A sound of firing . . . Up there, in the sky
1825Big dragon-flies hung hovering . . . Snowballs burst
1826About them . . .
1827Flies and snowballs! With a cry
1828He crouched to watch the airmen pass—the first
1829That he’d seen under fire. Lord, that was pluck—
1830Shells bursting all about them—and what nerve!
1831130
1832
1833They took their chance, and trusted to their luck.
1834At such a dizzy height to dip and swerve,
1835Dodging the shell-fire . . .
1836Hell! but one was hit,
1837And tumbling like a pigeon, plump . . .
1838Thank Heaven,
1839It righted, and then turned; and after it
1840The whole flock followed safe—four, five, six, seven,
1841Yes, they were all there safe. He hoped they’ld win
1842Back to their lines in safety. They deserved,
1843Even if they were Germans . . . ’Twas no sin
1844To wish them luck. Think how that beggar swerved
1845140
1846
1847Just in the nick of time!
1848He, too, must try
1849To win back to the lines, though, likely as not,
1850He’ld take the wrong turn: but he couldn’t lie
1851Forever in that hungry hole and rot,
1852He’d got to take his luck, to take his chance
1853Of being sniped by foes or friends. He’ld be
1854With any luck in Germany or France
1855Or Kingdom-come, next morning . . .
1856Drearily
1857The blazing day burnt over him. Shot and shell
1858Whistling and whining ceaselessly. But light
1859150
1860
1861Faded at last, and as the darkness fell
1862He rose, and crawled away into the night.
1863Strawberries
1864
1865Since four she had been plucking strawberries:
1866And it was only eight now; and the sun
1867Already blazing. There’ld be little ease
1868For her until the endless day was done . . .
1869Yet, why should she have any ease, while he—
1870While he . . .
1871But there, she mustn’t think of him,
1872Fighting beneath that burning sun, maybe,—
1873His rifle nigh red-hot, and every limb
1874Aching for sleep, the sweat dried on his brow,
1875And baking in the blaze, and such a thirst,
187610
1877
1878Prickly and choking, she could feel it now
1879In her own throat. He’d said it was the worst,
1880In his last letter, worst of all to bear,
1881That burning thirst—that, and the hellish noise . . .
1882And she was plucking strawberries: and there
1883In the cool shadow of the elm their boys,
1884Their baby-boys, were sleeping quietly . . .
1885But she was aching too: her head and back
1886Were one hot blinding ache; and dizzily
1887Sometimes across her eyes the light swam black
188820
1889
1890With dancing spots of red . . .
1891So ripe and sweet
1892Among their fresh green leaves the strawberries lay,
1893Although the earth was baking in the heat,
1894Burning her soles—and yet the summer day
1895Was young enough!
1896If she could only cram
1897A handful of fresh berries sweet and cool
1898Into his mouth, while he . . .
1899A red light swam
1900Before her eyes . . .
1901She mustn’t think, poor fool,
1902What he’ld be doing now, or she’ld go crazed . . .
1903Then what would happen to them left alone—
190430
1905
1906The little lads!
1907And he would be fair mazed,°
1908When he came back, to see how they had grown,
1909William and Dick, and how they talked. Two year,
1910Since he had gone—and he had never set
1911His eyes upon his youngest son. ’Twas queer
1912To think he hadn’t seen his baby yet,—
1913And it nigh fourteen months old.
1914Everything
1915Was queer in these days. She could never guess
1916How it had come about that he could bring
1917Himself to go and fight. ’Twas little less
191840
1919
1920Than murder to have taken him, and he
1921So mild and easy-tempered, never one
1922For drink or picking quarrels hastily . . .
1923And now he would be fighting in that sun . . .
1924’Twas quite beyond her. Yet, somehow, it seemed
1925He’d got to go. She couldn’t understand . . .
1926When they had married, little had they dreamed
1927What things were coming to! In all the land
1928There was no gentler husband . . .
1929It was queer:
1930She couldn’t get the rights of it, no way.
193150
1932
1933She thought and thought, but couldn’t get it clear
1934Why he’d to leave his own work—making hay
1935‘Twould be this weather—leave his home, and all—
1936His wife and his young family, and go
1937To fight in foreign lands, and maybe fall,
1938Fighting another lad he didn’t know,
1939And had no quarrel with . . .
1940The world was mad,
1941Or she was going crazy. Anyhow
1942She couldn’t see the rights of it . . . Her lad°
1943Had thought it right to go, she knew . . .
1944But now
194560
1946
1947She mustn’t think about it all . . . And so
1948She’d best stop puzzling, and pluck strawberries . . .
1949And every woman plucking in the row
1950Had husband, son, or brother overseas.
1951Men seemed to see things differently: and still
1952She wondered sore if even they knew why
1953They went themselves, almost against their will . . .
1954But sure enough, that was her baby’s cry.
1955’Twas feeding time: and she’ld be glad to rest
1956Her back a bit. It always gave her ease,
195770
1958
1959To feel her baby feeding at her breast,
1960And pluck to go on gathering strawberries.
1961Otterburn
1962
1963The lad who went to Flanders—°
1964Otterburn, Otterburn—
1965The lad who went to Flanders,
1966And never will return—
1967Though low he lies in Flanders,
1968Beneath the Flemish mud,
1969He hears through all his dreaming
1970The Otterburn in flood.
1971And though there be in Flanders
1972No clear and singing streams,
197310
1974
1975The Otterburn runs singing
1976Of summer through his dreams.
1977And when peace comes to Flanders,
1978Because it comes too late,
1979He’ll still lie there, and listen
1980To the Otterburn in spate—
1981The lad who went to Flanders—
1982Otterburn, Otterburn—
1983The lad who went to Flanders,
1984And never will return.
198520
1986Air-Raid
1987
1988Night shatters in mid-heaven: the bark of guns,
1989The roar of planes, the crash of bombs, and all
1990The unshackled skiey pandemonium stuns
1991The senses to indifference, when a fall
1992Of masonry nearby startles awake,
1993Tingling, wide-eyed, prick-eared, with bristling hair,
1994Each sense within the body, crouched aware
1995Like some sore-hunted creature in the brake.°
1996Yet side by side we lie in the little room
1997Just touching hands, with eyes and ears that strain
199810
1999
2000Keenly, yet dream-bewildered, through tense gloom,
2001Listening, in helpless stupor of insane
2002Drugged nightmare panic, fantastically wild,
2003To the quiet breathing of our sleeping child.
2004
2005
2006WHERE IS JEHOVAH?
2007
2008Where is Jehovah, the God of Israel, with his Ark and his Tabernacle and his Pillars of Fire?°
2009He ought to be here—This place would suit him.
2010Here is a people pouring through a wilderness—
2011Here are armies camping in a desert—
2012Their little tents are like sheep flocking over the prairie—
2013It’s all in the style of the God of Israel.
2014Here is a land that was silent and desolate, suddenly covered with noise and confusion,
2015The wide, white plains and the shallow grey valleys are smeared over with the disorder of armies.
2016Picardy is shaking with a fever,°
2017Picardy’s hills are wounded and broken,
201810
2019
2020Picardy’s fields are scarred as with small-pox—
2021What a chance for His prophets!
2022What a playground for miracles!
2023A host of men at the end of their strength, fighting death, fighting terror, with no one to worship—
2024He need but lift his finger—
2025Here are all his pet properties ready to hand, the thunder, the lightning, the clouds and the fire—
2026This is His hour, but Jehovah has missed it.
2027This is not His thunder nor His lightning—
2028These are not His people—
2029These are the armies of France and of England—
203020
2031
2032The thunder is the thunder of their guns, and the lightning that runs along the horizon is the flare and the flash of the battle that’s raging; Moses is dead—and Joshua, who led His people into the promised land, is dead, and there are no more prophets to cry through the wilderness to comfort these people—°
2033They must look after themselves.
2034All the host of them, each one of them, quite alone each one of them, every one of the hundred thousand of them, alone, must stand up to meet the war.
2035With the sky cracking—
2036With creatures of wide metal wings tearing the sky over his head—°
2037With the earth shaking—
2038With the solid earth under his feet giving way—
2039With the hills covered with fire and the valleys smoking, and the few bare trees spitting bullets, and the long roads like liquid torrents, rolling up with guns and munitions and men, always men and more men, with these long roads rolling up like a river to drown him and no way of escape.
2040With the few houses broken, no walls, no enclosure, no protection.
2041With all of the universe crushing upon him, rain, sun, cold, dark, death, coming full on him.
204230
2043
2044With the men near him going mad, jibbering, bleeding, twisting,
2045With his comrade lying dead under his feet,
2046With the enemy beyond there, unseen, curious,
2047With eternity waiting, whispering to him through the noise of the cannon,
2048With the memory of his home haunting him, and the face of a woman who is waiting,
2049With the soft echoes of his children’s sweet laughter sounding, and shells bursting with roars near him, but not drowning those voices,
2050He stands there.
2051He keeps on standing. He stands solid.
2052He is so small in the landscape as to be almost invisible. We see him as a speck there—
2053He is dirty. He is tired. His stomach is empty—
205440
2055
2056He is stupid. His life has been stupid—
2057He has lived a few years without understanding,
2058He does not understand now—he will never understand—
2059He is bigger than all the world.
2060He is more important than all the army.
2061He is more terrible than all the war.
2062He stands there—
20631 Under the Tricolour [Borden’s note]
2064* * * * *
2065But where is Jehovah, the God of the great drama, the God of Vengeance, the Lord of Hosts?°
2066Here the scene is set for His acting—a desert, a promised land, a nation in agony waiting—
2067Jehovah’s not here—
206850
2069
2070There’s only a man standing,—quite still.
2071THE SONG OF THE MUD
2072
2073This is the song of the mud,
2074The pale yellow glistening mud that covers the naked hills like satin,
2075The grey gleaming silvery mud that is spread like enamel over the valleys,
2076The frothing, squirting, spurting liquid mud that gurgles along the road-beds,
2077The thick elastic mud that is kneaded and pounded and squeezed under the hoofs of horses,
2078The invincible, inexhaustible mud of the War Zone.
2079This is the song of the mud, the uniform of the poilu.°
2080His coat is of mud, his poor great flapping coat that is too big for him and too heavy,
2081His coat that once was blue, and now is grey and stiff with the mud that cakes it.
2082This is the mud that clothes him—
208310
2084
2085His trousers and boots are of mud—
2086And his skin is of mud—
2087And there is mud in his beard.
2088His head is crowned with a helmet of mud,
2089And he wears it—oh, he wears it well!
2090He wears it as a King wears the ermine that bores him—
2091He has set a new style in clothing,
2092He has introduced the chic of mud.
2093This is the song of the mud that wriggles its way into battle,
2094The impertinent, the intrusive, the ubiquitous, the unwelcome.
209520
2096
2097The slimy, inveterate nuisance,
2098That fills the trenches,
2099That mixes in with the food of the soldiers,
2100That spoils the working of motors and crawls into their secret parts,
2101That spreads itself over the guns,
2102That sucks the guns down and holds them fast in its slimy, voluminous lips,
2103That has no respect for destruction and muzzles the bursting of shells,
2104And slowly, softly, easily,
2105Soaks up the fire, the noise, soaks up the energy and the courage,
2106Soaks up the power of armies,
210730
2108
2109Soaks up the battle—
2110Just soaks it up and thus stops it.
2111This is the song of the mud, the obscene, the filthy, the putrid,
2112The vast liquid grave of our Armies—
2113It has drowned our men—
2114Its monstrous distended belly reeks with the undigested dead—
2115Our men have gone down into it, sinking slowly, and struggling and slowly disappearing.
2116Our fine men, our brave, strong young men,
2117Our glowing, red, shouting, brawny men,
2118Slowly, inch by inch, they have gone down into it.
211940
2120
2121Into its darkness, its thickness, its silence,
2122Relentlessly it drew them down, sucking them down,
2123They have been drowned there in thick, bitter, heaving mud—
2124It hides them—oh, so many of them!
2125Under its smooth glistening surface it is hiding them blandly,
2126There is not a trace of them—
2127There is no mark where they went down.
2128The mute, enormous mouth of the mud has closed over them.
2129This is the song of the mud,
2130The beautiful, glistening, golden mud that covers the hills like satin;
213150
2132
2133The mysterious, gleaming, silvery mud that is spread like enamel over the valleys.
2134Mud, the fantastic disguise of the War Zone;
2135Mud, the extinguishing mantle of battles;
2136Mud, the smooth, fluid grave of our soldiers.
2137This is the song of the mud.
2138THE HILL
2139
2140From the top of the hill I looked down upon the marvellous landscape of the war, the beautiful, the romantic landscape of the superb, exulting war.
2141The crests of the wide surging hills were golden, and the red tents clustering on their naked sides were like flowers in a shining desert of hills.
2142It was evening. The long shallow valley was bathed in blue shadow, and through the shadow, as if swimming, I saw the armies moving.
2143The long convoys of their motors passed down the road, an endless line of mysterious energy rolling, and the troops spreading over the wide basin of the valley people the wilderness with a phantom host.
2144Camp fires gleamed down there.
2145The sun was setting, and against the brilliant sky, along the clear crest of the hills to the west, a regiment of cavalry went filing. A flock of aeroplanes was flying home with a great whirring of proud wings.
2146Dizzy with the marvellous spectacle of the war, I looked down across the rough foreground that dropped away in darkness beneath my feet.
2147A path, the deserted way of peaceful cattle, showed below, beyond the gaping caverns of abandoned trenches, and along the path a German prisoner was coming, driven by a black man on a horse.
2148The black man wore a turban, and he drove the prisoner before him as one drives an animal to market.
2149The German stumbled on heavily beneath the nose of his captor’s horse. I could see the pallid disc of his face thrust forward and the exhausted lurching of his clumsy body. I could feel the heaviness of his despair.
215010
2151
2152Along the path that he travelled were piles of rubbish, old shell-cases, and boots, and battered helmets.
2153Two wooden crosses showed, sticking out of the rough ground.
2154And as I watched him disappear beneath the hill it seemed to me that his hate was like a curse crawling through the grave of our nation.
2155But beyond, in the deepening shadow of the valley, the marvellous spectacle of invincible phantom armies moved, as if swimming; and as I watched I heard, through the echoing of the guns, the faint crying music of bagpipes; the song of an unseen regiment marching.
2156The crests of the surging hills were still golden, and above the slumbering exultation of the prodigious war the fragile crescent of the new moon hung serene in the perfect sky.
2157Unidentified
2158
2159Look well at this man. Look!
2160Come up out of your graves, philosophers,
2161And you who founded churches, and all you
2162Who for ten thousand years have talked of God.
2163Come up out of your silent, sheltering tombs
2164You scientists who died unsatisfied,
2165For you have something interesting to learn
2166By looking at this man.
2167Stand all about, you many legioned ghosts!
2168He will not notice you.
216910
2170
2171Fill up the desert with your shadowy forms,
2172And in this vast resounding waste of death
2173Be for him an unseen retinue,
2174For he is going to die.
2175Look at his ugliness.
2176See how he stands there, planted in the mud like some old battered image of a faith forgotten by its God.
2177Look at his grizzled head jammed up into that round, close hat of iron.
2178See how he hunches up his shoulders;
2179How his spine is bent under his clumsy coat like the hard bending of a taut strung bow;
2180And how he leans, gripping with grimy fists the muzzle of his gun that digs its butt end down into the mud between the solid columns of his legs.
218120
2182
2183Look close—come close, pale ghosts,
2184Come back out of the dim unfinished past,
2185Crowd up across the edges of the earth
2186Where the horizon like a red-hot wire writhes, smoking, underneath tremendous blows.
2187Come up, come up across the quaking ground that gapes in sudden holes beneath your feet—
2188Come fearlessly across the twisting field where bones of men stick through the tortured mud.
2189Ghosts have no need to fear,
2190Look close at this man—Look!
2191He waits for death—
2192He knows—
219330
2194
2195He watches it approach—
2196He hears it coming—
2197He can feel it underneath his feet—
2198Death bearing down on him from every side,
2199Violent death, death that tears the sky to shrieking pieces,
2200Death that suddenly explodes out of the dreadful bowels of the earth.
2201He hears it screaming through the frantic air,
2202He hears it burrowing underneath the ground,
2203He feels the impact of it on his back, his chest, his legs, his belly, and his arms,
2204He does not move.
220540
2206
2207In all the landscape there is just one thing that does not move,
2208The figure of the man.
2209The sky long since has fallen from its dome.
2210Terror let loose like a gigantic wind has torn it from the ceiling of the world
2211And it is flapping down in frantic shreds.
2212The earth, ages ago, leaped screaming up; out of the fastness of its ancient laws,
2213There is no centre now to hold it down;
2214It rolls and writhes, a shifting, tortured thing, a floating mass of matter, set adrift.
2215And in between the flapping, suffering remnants of the sky and the convulsions of the maddened earth
2216The man stands solid.
221750
2218
2219Something holds him there.
2220What holds him, timid ghosts?
2221What do you say, you shuddering spirits dragged from secure vaults?
2222You who once died in kindly quiet rooms,
2223You who were companioned to the end by friends,
2224And closed your eyes in languor on a world
2225That you had fashioned for your peaceful selves?
2226Some of you scorned this man.
2227He was for you the ordinary man.
2228You thought him pitiable; contemptible or worse;
222960
2230
2231You gave him idols, temples, formulas of conduct, prisons, laws;
2232Some of you pitied him, and wept over his sins.
2233Some were horrified at what you called his passions, lust of women, food, drink, laughter, all such simple things.
2234And some of you were afraid;
2235Wanted to beat him down, break his spirit,
2236Muzzle his ideas, and bind with bands of hopelessness his energy.
2237None of you trusted him—
2238No! Not a single one of you trusted him.
2239Look at him now. Look well—look long.
2240Your giant—your brute—your ordinary man—70
2241Your fornicator, drunkard, anarchist,
2242Your ruthless, seed-sowing male,
2243Your covetous and greedy egoist,
2244Come close and look into his haggard face.
2245It is too late to do him justice now.
2246But look!—look at the stillness of that face
2247Made up of little fragile bones and flesh,
2248Tissued of quivering muscles, fine as silk,
2249Exquisite nerve endings and scarlet blood
2250That travels smoothly through the tender veins; 80
2251One blow—one moment more—and that man’s face will be a mass of matter, horrid slime—and little brittle bits—
2252He knows—
2253He waits—
2254His face remains quite still.
2255And underneath the bullet-spattered helmet on his head his steady eyes look out.
2256What is it that looks out?
2257What is there mirrored there in those deep, bloodshot eyes?
2258Terror? No!
2259Despair? Perhaps.
2260But what else? 90
2261Ah, poor ghosts—poor, blind, unseeing ghosts—
2262It is his self you see—His self that does remember what he loved and what he wanted, and what he never had—His self that can regret, that can reproach his own self now—His self that gave its self, let loose its hold of all but just its self—
2263Is that then nothing, just his naked self, inviolate; pinning down a shaking world like a single nail that holds;
2264A single rivet driven down to hold a universe together—
2265Go back, poor ghosts—go back into your graves.
2266He has no need of you, this nameless man.
2267You philosophers, you scientists, you men of God, leave this man alone.
2268Leave him the grandeur of obscurity,
2269Leave in darkness the dumb anguish of his soul.
2270Leave him the great loss of his identity.
2271100
2272
2273Let the guns chant his death-song down the world;
2274Let the flare of cannon light his dying;
2275Let those remnants of men beneath his feet welcome him mutely when he falls beside them in the mud.
2276Take one last look and leave him standing there,
2277Unfriended—Unrecognised—Unrewarded and Unknown.
2278
2279
22808
2281The Redeemer
2282
2283Darkness: the rain sluiced down; the mire was deep;
2284It was past twelve on a mid-winter night,
2285When peaceful folk in beds lay snug asleep;
2286There, with much work to do before the light,
2287We lugged our clay-sucked boots as best we might
2288Along the trench; sometimes a bullet sang,
2289And droning shells burst with a hollow bang;
2290We were soaked, chilled and wretched, every one;
2291Darkness; the distant wink of a huge gun.
2292I turned in the black ditch, loathing the storm;
229310
2294
2295A rocket fizzed and burned with blanching flare,
2296And lit the face of what had been a form
2297Floundering in mirk. He stood before me there;°
2298I say that He was Christ; stiff in the glare,
2299And leaning forward from his burdening task,
2300Both arms supporting it; His eyes on mine
2301Stared from the woeful head that seemed a mask
2302Of mortal pain in Hell’s unholy shine.
2303No thorny crown, only a woollen cap°
2304He wore—an English soldier, white and strong,
230520
2306
2307Who loved his time like any simple chap,
2308Good days of work and sport and homely song;
2309Now he has learned that nights are very long,
2310And dawn a watching of the windowed sky.
2311But to the end, unjudging, he’ll endure
2312Horror and pain, not uncontent to die
2313That Lancaster on Lune may stand secure.°
2314He faced me, reeling in his weariness,
2315Shouldering his load of planks, so hard to bear.
2316I say that He was Christ, who wrought to bless
231730
2318
2319All groping things with freedom bright as air,
2320And with His mercy washed and made them fair.
2321Then the flame sank, and all grew black as pitch,
2322While we began to struggle along the ditch;
2323And someone flung his burden in the muck,
2324Mumbling: ‘O Christ Almighty, now I’m stuck!’
2325A Working Party
2326
2327Three hours ago he blundered up the trench,
2328Sliding and poising, groping with his boots;
2329Sometimes he tripped and lurched against the walls
2330With hands that pawed the sodden bags of chalk.°
2331He couldn’t see the man who walked in front;
2332Only he heard the drum and rattle of feet
2333Stepping along barred trench boards, often splashing°
2334Wretchedly where the sludge was ankle-deep.
2335Voices would grunt ‘Keep to your right—make way!’
2336When squeezing past some men from the front-line:
233710
2338
2339White faces peered, puffing a point of red;
2340Candles and braziers glinted through the chinks
2341And curtain-flaps of dug-outs; then the gloom
2342Swallowed his sense of sight; he stooped and swore
2343Because a sagging wire had caught his neck.
2344A flare went up; the shining whiteness spread°
2345And flickered upward, showing nimble rats
2346And mounds of glimmering sand-bags, bleached with rain;
2347Then the slow silver moment died in dark.
2348The wind came posting by with chilly gusts
234920
2350
2351And buffeting at corners, piping thin.
2352And dreary through the crannies; rifle-shots
2353Would split and crack and sing along the night,
2354And shells came calmly through the drizzling air
2355To burst with hollow bang below the hill.
2356Three hours ago he stumbled up the trench;
2357Now he will never walk that road again:
2358He must be carried back, a jolting lump
2359Beyond all needs of tenderness and care.
2360He was a young man with a meagre wife
236130
2362
2363And two small children in a Midland town;°
2364He showed their photographs to all his mates,
2365And they considered him a decent chap
2366Who did his work and hadn’t much to say,
2367And always laughed at other people’s jokes
2368Because he hadn’t any of his own.
2369That night when he was busy at his job
2370Of piling bags along the parapet,°
2371He thought how slow time went, stamping his feet
2372And blowing on his fingers, pinched with cold.
237340
2374
2375He thought of getting back by half-past twelve,
2376And tot of rum to send him warm to sleep
2377In draughty dug-out frowsty with the fumes°
2378Of coke, and full of snoring weary men.°
2379He pushed another bag along the top,
2380Craning his body outward; then a flare
2381Gave one white glimpse of No Man’s Land and wire;°
2382And as he dropped his head the instant split
2383His startled life with lead, and all went out.
2384The Kiss
2385
2386To these I turn, in these I trust—
2387Brother Lead and Sister Steel.
2388To his blind power I make appeal,
2389I guard her beauty clean from rust.
2390He spins and burns and loves the air,
2391And splits a skull to win my praise;
2392But up the nobly marching days
2393She glitters naked, cold and fair.
2394Sweet Sister, grant your soldier this:
2395That in good fury he may feel
239610
2397
2398The body where he sets his heel
2399Quail from your downward darting kiss.
2400A Night Attack
2401
2402The rank stench of those bodies haunts me still,
2403And I remember things I’d best forget.
2404For now we’ve marched to a green, trenchless land
2405Twelve miles from battering guns: along the grass
2406Brown lines of tents are hives for snoring men;
2407Wide, radiant water sways the floating sky
2408Below dark, shivering trees. And living-clean
2409Comes back with thoughts of home and hours of sleep.
2410To-night I smell the battle; miles away
2411Gun-thunder leaps and thuds along the ridge;
241210
2413
2414The spouting shells dig pits in fields of death,
2415And wounded men are moaning in the woods.
2416If any friend be there whom I have loved,
2417God speed him safe to England with a gash.
2418It’s sundown in the camp; some youngster laughs,
2419Lifting his mug and drinking health to all
2420Who come unscathed from that unpitying waste.
2421(Terror and ruin lurk behind his gaze.)
2422Another sits with tranquil, musing face,
2423Puffing his pipe and dreaming of the girl
242420
2425
2426Whose last scrawled letter lies upon his knee.
2427The sunlight falls, low-ruddy from the west,
2428Upon their heads; last week they might have died;
2429And now they stretch their limbs in tired content.
2430One says ‘The bloody Bosche has got the knock;°
2431And soon they’ll crumple up and chuck their games.
2432We’ve got the beggars on the run at last!’
2433Then I remembered someone that I’d seen
2434Dead in a squalid, miserable ditch,
2435Heedless of toiling feet that trod him down.
243630
2437
2438He was a Prussian with a decent face,°
2439Young, fresh, and pleasant, so I dare to say.
2440No doubt he loathed the war and longed for peace,
2441And cursed our souls because we’d killed his friends.
2442One night he yawned along a half-dug trench°
2443Midnight; and then the British guns began
2444With heavy shrapnel bursting low, and ‘hows’
2445Whistling to cut the wire with blinding din.°
2446He didn’t move; the digging still went on;
2447Men stooped and shovelled; someone gave a grunt,
244840
2449
2450And moaned and died with agony in the sludge.
2451Then the long hiss of shells lifted and stopped.
2452He stared into the gloom; a rocket curved,
2453And rifles rattled angrily on the left
2454Down by the wood, and there was noise of bombs.
2455Then the damned English loomed in scrambling haste
2456Out of the dark and struggled through the wire,
2457And there were shouts and curses; someone screamed
2458And men began to blunder down the trench
2459Without their rifles. It was time to go:
246050
2461
2462He grabbed his coat; stood up, gulping some bread;
2463Then clutched his head and fell.
2464I found him there
2465In the gray morning when the place was held.
2466His face was in the mud; one arm flung out
2467As when he crumpled up; his sturdy legs
2468Were bent beneath his trunk; heels to the sky.
2469Christ and the Soldier
2470
2471I
2472The straggled soldier halted—stared at Him—
2473Then clumsily dumped down upon his knees,
2474Gasping, ‘O blessed crucifix, I’m beat!’
2475And Christ, still sentried by the seraphim,
2476Near the front-line, between two splintered trees,
2477Spoke him: ‘My son, behold these hands and feet.’
2478The soldier eyed Him upward, limb by limb,
2479Paused at the Face; then muttered, ‘Wounds like these
2480Would shift a bloke to Blighty just a treat!’°
2481Christ, gazing downward, grieving and ungrim,
248210
2483
2484Whispered, ‘I made for you the mysteries,
2485Beyond all battles moves the Paraclete.’°
2486II
2487The soldier chucked his rifle in the dust,
2488And slipped his pack, and wiped his neck, and said—
2489‘O Christ Almighty, stop this bleeding fight!’
2490Above that hill the sky was stained like rust
2491With smoke. In sullen daybreak flaring red
2492The guns were thundering bombardment’s blight.
2493The soldier cried, ‘I was born full of lust,
2494With hunger, thirst, and wishfulness to wed.
249520
2496
2497Who cares today if I done wrong or right?’
2498Christ asked all pitying, ‘Can you put no trust
2499In my known word that shrives each faithful head?°
2500Am I not resurrection, life and light?’
2501III
2502Machine-guns rattled from below the hill;
2503High bullets flicked and whistled through the leaves;
2504And smoke came drifting from exploding shells.
2505Christ said, ‘Believe; and I can cleanse your ill.
2506I have not died in vain between two thieves;°
2507Nor made a fruitless gift of miracles.’
250830
2509
2510The soldier answered, ‘Heal me if you will,
2511Maybe there’s comfort when a soul believes
2512In mercy, and we need it in these hells.
2513But be you for both sides? I’m paid to kill
2514And if I shoot a man his mother grieves.
2515Does that come into what your teaching tells?’
2516A bird lit on the Christ and twittered gay;
2517Then a breeze passed and shook the ripening corn.
2518A Red Cross waggon bumped along the track.°
2519Forsaken Jesus dreamed in the desolate day—
252040
2521
2522Uplifted Jesus, Prince of Peace forsworn—
2523An observation post for the attack.
2524‘Lord Jesus, ain’t you got no more to say?’
2525Bowed hung that head below the crown of thorns.°
2526The soldier shifted, and picked up his pack,
2527And slung his gun, and stumbled on his way.
2528‘O God,’ he groaned, ‘why ever was I born?’ . . .
2529The battle boomed, and no reply came back.
2530‘They’
2531
2532The Bishop tells us: ‘When the boys come back
2533They will not be the same; for they’ll have fought
2534In a just cause: they lead the last attack
2535On Anti-Christ; their comrades’ blood has bought
2536New right to breed an honourable race,
2537They have challenged Death and dared him face to face.’
2538‘We’re none of us the same!’ the boys reply.
2539‘For George lost both his legs; and Bill’s stone blind;
2540Poor Jim’s shot through the lungs and like to die;
2541And Bert’s gone syphilitic: you’ll not find°
254210
2543
2544A chap who’s served that hasn’t found some change.’
2545And the Bishop said: ‘The ways of God are strange!’°
2546The Poet as Hero
2547
2548You’ve heard me, scornful, harsh, and discontented,
2549Mocking and loathing War: you’ve asked me why
2550Of my old, silly sweetness I’ve repented—
2551My ecstasies changed to an ugly cry.°
2552You are aware that once I sought the Grail,
2553Riding in armour bright, serene and strong;
2554And it was told that through my infant wail
2555There rose immortal semblances of song.
2556But now I’ve said good-bye to Galahad,°
2557And am no more the knight of dreams and show:
255810
2559
2560For lust and senseless hatred make me glad,
2561And my killed friends are with me where I go.
2562Wound for red wound I burn to smite their wrongs;°
2563And there is absolution in my songs.°
2564‘Blighters’
2565
2566The House is crammed: tier beyond tier they grin°
2567And cackle at the Show, while prancing ranks
2568Of harlots shrill the chorus, drunk with din;
2569‘We’re sure the Kaiser loves our dear old Tanks!’°
2570I’d like to see a Tank come down the stalls,
2571Lurching to rag-time tunes, or ‘Home, sweet Home’,°
2572And there’d be no more jokes in Music-halls°
2573To mock the riddled corpses round Bapaume.°
2574Base Details
2575
2576If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath,
2577I’d live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
2578And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
2579You’d see me with my puffy petulant face,
2580Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,
2581Reading the Roll of Honour. ‘Poor young chap,’°
2582I’d say—‘I used to know his father well;
2583Yes, we’ve lost heavily in this last scrap.’
2584And when the war is done and youth stone dead,
2585I’d toddle safely home and die—in bed.
258610
2587The Rear-Guard
2588
2589(Hindenburg Line, April 1917)
2590Groping along the tunnel, step by step,
2591He winked his prying torch with patching glare
2592From side to side, and sniffed the unwholesome air.
2593Tins, boxes, bottles, shapes too vague to know;
2594A mirror smashed, the mattress from a bed;
2595And he, exploring fifty feet below
2596The rosy gloom of battle overhead.
2597Tripping, he grabbed the wall; saw someone lie
2598Humped at his feet, half-hidden by a rug,
2599And stooped to give the sleeper’s arm a tug.
260010
2601
2602‘I’m looking for headquarters.’ No reply.
2603‘God blast your neck!’ (For days he’d had no sleep,)
2604‘ Get up and guide me through this stinking place.’°
2605Savage, he kicked a soft, unanswering heap,
2606And flashed his beam across the livid face°
2607Terribly glaring up, whose eyes yet wore
2608Agony dying hard ten days before;
2609And fists of fingers clutched a blackening wound.
2610Alone he staggered on until he found
2611Dawn’s ghost that filtered down a shafted stair
261220
2613
2614To the dazed, muttering creatures underground
2615Who hear the boom of shells in muffled sound.
2616At last, with sweat of horror in his hair,
2617He climbed through darkness to the twilight air,
2618Unloading hell behind him step by step.
2619The General
2620
2621‘Good-morning; good-morning!’ the General said
2622When we met him last week on our way to the line.
2623Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of ’em dead,
2624And we’re cursing his staff for incompetent swine.
2625‘He’s a cheery old card,’ grunted Harry to Jack
2626As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.°
2627* * * * *
2628But he did for them both by his plan of attack.
2629Repression of War Experience
2630
2631Now light the candles; one; two; there’s a moth;
2632What silly beggars they are to blunder in
2633And scorch their wings with glory, liquid flame—
2634No, no, not that,—it’s bad to think of war,
2635When thoughts you’ve gagged all day come back to scare you;
2636And it’s been proved that soldiers don’t go mad
2637Unless they lose control of ugly thoughts
2638That drive them out to jabber among the trees.
2639Now light your pipe; look, what a steady hand.
2640Draw a deep breath; stop thinking; count fifteen,
264110
2642
2643And you’re as right as rain . . .
2644Why won’t it rain? . . .
2645I wish there’d be a thunder-storm to-night,
2646With bucketsful of water to sluice the dark,
2647And make the roses hang their dripping heads.
2648Books; what a jolly company they are,
2649Standing so quiet and patient on their shelves,
2650Dressed in dim brown, and black, and white, and green,
2651And every kind of colour. Which will you read?
2652Come on; O do read something; they’re so wise.
2653I tell you all the wisdom of the world
265420
2655
2656Is waiting for you on those shelves; and yet
2657You sit and gnaw your nails, and let your pipe out,
2658And listen to the silence: on the ceiling
2659There’s one big, dizzy moth that bumps and flutters;
2660And in the breathless air outside the house
2661The garden waits for something that delays.
2662There must be crowds of ghosts among the trees,—
2663Not people killed in battle,—they’re in France,—
2664But horrible shapes in shrouds—old men who died
2665Slow, natural deaths,—old men with ugly souls,
266630
2667
2668Who wore their bodies out with nasty sins.
2669* * * * *
2670You’re quiet and peaceful, summering safe at home;
2671You’d never think there was a bloody war on! . . .
2672O yes, you would . . . why, you can hear the guns.
2673Hark! Thud, thud, thud,—quite soft . . . they never cease—
2674Those whispering guns—O Christ, I want to go out
2675And screech at them to stop—I’m going crazy;
2676I’m going stark, staring mad because of the guns.
2677Counter-Attack
2678
2679We’d gained our first objective hours before
2680While dawn broke like a face with blinking eyes,
2681Pallid, unshaved and thirsty, blind with smoke.
2682Things seemed all right at first. We held their line,
2683With bombers posted, Lewis guns well placed,°
2684And clink of shovels deepening the shallow trench.
2685The place was rotten with dead; green clumsy legs
2686High-booted, sprawled and grovelled along the saps
2687And trunks, face downward, in the sucking mud,
2688Wallowed like trodden sand-bags loosely filled;
268910
2690
2691And naked sodden buttocks, mats of hair,
2692Bulged, clotted heads slept in the plastering slime.
2693And then the rain began,—the jolly old rain!
2694A yawning soldier knelt against the bank,
2695Staring across the morning blear with fog;
2696He wondered when the Allemands would get busy;°
2697And then, of course, they started with five-nines°
2698Traversing, sure as fate, and never a dud.°
2699Mute in the clamour of shells he watched them burst
2700Spouting dark earth and wire with gusts from hell,
270120
2702
2703While posturing giants dissolved in drifts of smoke.
2704He crouched and flinched, dizzy with galloping fear,
2705Sick for escape,—loathing the strangled horror
2706And butchered, frantic gestures of the dead.
2707An officer came blundering down the trench:
2708‘Stand-to and man the fire-step!’ On he went . . .°
2709Gasping and bawling, ‘Fire-step . . . counter-attack!’
2710Then the haze lifted. Bombing on the right
2711Down the old sap: machine-guns on the left;°
2712And stumbling figures looming out in front.
271330
2714
2715‘O Christ, they’re coming at us!’ Bullets spat,
2716And he remembered his rifle . . . rapid fire . . .
2717And started blazing wildly . . . then a bang
2718Crumpled and spun him sideways, knocked him out
2719To grunt and wriggle: none heeded him; he choked
2720And fought the flapping veils of smothering gloom,
2721Lost in a blurred confusion of yells and groans . . .
2722Down, and down, and down, he sank and drowned,
2723Bleeding to death. The counter-attack had failed.
2724How to Die
2725
2726Dark clouds are smouldering into red
2727While down the craters morning burns.°
2728The dying soldier shifts his head
2729To watch the glory that returns;
2730He lifts his fingers toward the skies
2731Where holy brightness breaks in flame;
2732Radiance reflected in his eyes,
2733And on his lips a whispered name.
2734You’d think, to hear some people talk,
2735That lads go West with sobs and curses,°
273610
2737
2738And sullen faces white as chalk,
2739Hankering for wreaths and tombs and hearses.
2740But they’ve been taught the way to do it
2741Like Christian soldiers; not with haste
2742And shuddering groans, but passing through it
2743With due regard for decent taste.
2744Glory of Women
2745
2746You love us when we’re heroes, home on leave,
2747Or wounded in a mentionable place.
2748You worship decorations; you believe
2749That chivalry redeems the war’s disgrace.
2750You make us shells. You listen with delight,°
2751By tales of dirt and danger fondly thrilled.°
2752You crown our distant ardours while we fight,
2753And mourn our laurelled memories when we’re killed.
2754You can’t believe that British troops ‘retire’
2755When hell’s last horror breaks them, and they run,
275610
2757
2758Trampling the terrible corpses—blind with blood.
2759O German mother dreaming by the fire,
2760While you are knitting socks to send your son
2761His face is trodden deeper in the mud.
2762Everyone Sang
2763
2764Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
2765And I was filled with such delight
2766As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
2767Winging wildly across the white
2768Orchards and dark-green fields; on—on—and out of sight.
2769Everyone’s voice was suddenly lifted;
2770And beauty came like the setting sun:
2771My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
2772Drifted away . . . O, but Everyone
2773Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.
277410
2775On Passing the New Menin Gate
2776
2777Who will remember, passing through this Gate,
2778The unheroic Dead who fed the guns?
2779Who shall absolve the foulness of their fate,—
2780Those doomed, conscripted, unvictorious ones?
2781Crudely renewed, the Salient holds its own.°
2782Paid are its dim defenders by this pomp;
2783Paid, with a pile of peace-complacent stone,
2784The armies who endured that sullen swamp.
2785Here was the world’s worst wound. And here with pride
2786‘Their name liveth for ever,’ the Gateway claims.°
278710
2788
2789Was ever an immolation so belied°
2790As these intolerably nameless names?
2791Well might the Dead who struggled in the slime
2792Rise and deride this sepulchre of crime.
2793
2794
27951914
2796
2797I. PEACE
2798
2799Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour,°
2800And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping,
2801With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,
2802To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,
2803Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary,
2804Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move,
2805And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary,
2806And all the little emptiness of love!
2807Oh! we, who have known shame, we have found release there,°
2808Where there’s no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending,
280910
2810
2811Naught broken save this body, lost but breath;
2812Nothing to shake the laughing heart’s long peace there
2813But only agony, and that has ending;
2814And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.
2815II. SAFETY
2816
2817Dear! of all happy in the hour, most blest°
2818He who has found our hid security,
2819Assured in the dark tides of the world that rest,
2820And heard our word, ‘Who is so safe as we?’°
2821We have found safety with all things undying,
2822The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth,
2823The deep night, and birds singing, and clouds flying,
2824And sleep, and freedom, and the autumnal earth.
2825We have built a house that is not for Time’s throwing.
2826We have gained a peace unshaken by pain for ever.
282710
2828
2829War knows no power. Safe shall be my going,
2830Secretly armed against all death’s endeavour;
2831Safe though all safety’s lost; safe where men fall;
2832And if these poor limbs die, safest of all.
2833III. THE DEAD
2834
2835Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead!
2836There’s none of these so lonely and poor of old,°
2837But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold.
2838These laid the world away; poured out the red
2839Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be
2840Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene,
2841That men call age; and those who would have been,
2842Their sons, they gave, their immortality.
2843Blow, bugles, blow! They brought us, for our dearth,
2844Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain.
284510
2846
2847Honour has come back, as a king, to earth,
2848And paid his subjects with a royal wage;
2849And Nobleness walks in our ways again;
2850And we have come into our heritage.
2851IV. THE DEAD
2852
2853These hearts were woven of human joys and cares,
2854Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth.
2855The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs,
2856And sunset, and the colours of the earth.
2857These had seen movement, and heard music; known
2858Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended;
2859Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone;
2860Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended.
2861There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter
2862And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after,
286310
2864
2865Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance
2866And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white
2867Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance,
2868A width, a shining peace, under the night.
2869V. THE SOLDIER
2870
2871If I should die, think only this of me:
2872That there’s some corner of a foreign field
2873That is for ever England. There shall be
2874In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
2875A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
2876Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
2877A body of England’s, breathing English air,
2878Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
2879And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
2880A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
288110
2882
2883Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
2884Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
2885And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
2886In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
2887[Fragment]
2888
2889I strayed about the deck, an hour, to-night
2890Under a cloudy moonless sky; and peeped
2891In at the windows, watched my friends at table,
2892Or playing cards, or standing in the doorway,
2893Or coming out into the darkness. Still
2894No one could see me.
2895I would have thought of them
2896—Heedless, within a week of battle—in pity,
2897Pride in their strength and in the weight and firmness
2898And link’d beauty of bodies, and pity that
2899This gay machine of splendour ’ld soon be broken,
290010
2901
2902Thought little of, pashed, scattered . . .
2903Only, always,
2904I could but see them—against the lamplight—pass
2905Like coloured shadows, thinner than filmy glass,
2906Slight bubbles, fainter than the wave’s faint light,
2907That broke to phosphorus out in the night,°
2908Perishing things and strange ghosts—soon to die
2909To other ghosts—this one, or that, or I.
2910April 1915.
2911
2912Prayer for Those on the Staff
2913
2914Fighting in mud, we turn to Thee,
2915In these dread times of battle, Lord,
2916To keep us safe, if so may be,
2917From shrapnel, snipers, shell, and sword.
2918Yet not on us—(for we are men
2919Of meaner clay, who fight in clay)—
2920But on the Staff, the Upper Ten,°
2921Depends the issue of the day.
2922The Staff is working with its brains,
2923While we are sitting in the trench,
292410
2925
2926The Staff the universe ordains
2927(Subject to Thee and General French).°
2928God, help the Staff—especially
2929The young ones, many of them sprung
2930From our high aristocracy;
2931Their task is hard, and they are young.
2932O Lord, Who mad’st all things to be,
2933And madest some things very good,
2934Please keep the Extra A.D.C.°
2935From horrid scenes, and sights of blood.
293620
2937
2938See that his eggs are newly laid,
2939Not tinged—as some of them—with green;
2940And let no nasty draughts invade
2941The windows of his limousine.
2942When he forgets to buy the bread,
2943When there are no more minerals,
2944Preserve his smooth well-oiled head
2945From wrath of costive generals.°
2946O Lord, Who mad’st all things to be
2947And hatest nothing thou hast made,
294830
2949
2950Please keep the Extra A.D.C.
2951Out of the sun and in the shade.
2952Into Battle
2953
2954The naked earth is warm with spring,
2955And with green grass and bursting trees
2956Leans to the sun’s kiss glorying,
2957And quivers in the loving breeze;
2958And Life is Colour and Warmth and Light,
2959And a striving evermore for these;
2960And he is dead who will not fight;
2961And who dies fighting has increase.
2962The fighting man shall from the sun
2963Take warmth, and life from the glowing earth;
296410
2965
2966Speed with the light-foot winds to run,
2967And with the trees a newer birth;
2968And when his fighting shall be done,
2969Great rest, and fulness after dearth.
2970All the bright company of Heaven
2971Hold him in their high comradeship—
2972The Dog-star, and the Sisters Seven,
2973Orion’s Belt and sworded hip.°
2974The woodland trees that stand together,
2975They stand to him each one a friend;
297620
2977
2978They gently speak in the windy weather,
2979They guide to valley and ridge’s end.
2980The kestrel hovering by day,
2981And the little owls that call by night,
2982Bid him be swift and keen as they—
2983As keen of sound, as swift of sight.
2984The blackbird sings to him ‘Brother, brother,
2985If this be the last song you shall sing,
2986Sing well, for you will not sing another;
2987Brother, sing!’
298830
2989
2990In dreary doubtful waiting hours,
2991Before the brazen frenzy starts,
2992The horses show him nobler powers;
2993O patient eyes, courageous hearts!
2994And when the burning moment breaks,
2995And all things else are out of mind,
2996And Joy of Battle only takes
2997Him by the throat, and makes him blind—
2998Through joy and blindness he shall know,
2999Not caring much to know, that still
300040
3001
3002Nor lead nor steel shall reach him so
3003That it be not the Destined Will.
3004The thundering line of battle stands,
3005And in the air death moans and sings;
3006But Day shall clasp him with strong hands,
3007And Night shall fold him in soft wings.
3008
3009Magpies in Picardy
3010
3011The magpies in Picardy
3012Are more than I can tell.
3013They flicker down the dusty roads
3014And cast a magic spell
3015On the men who march through Picardy,
3016Through Picardy to hell.
3017(The blackbird flies with panic,
3018The swallow goes like light,
3019The finches move like ladies,
3020The owl floats by at night;
302110
3022
3023But the great and flashing magpie
3024He flies as artists might.)
3025A magpie in Picardy
3026Told me secret things—
3027Of the music in white feathers,
3028And the sunlight that sings
3029And dances in deep shadows—
3030He told me with his wings.
3031(The hawk is cruel and rigid,
3032He watches from a height;
303320
3034
3035The rook is slow and sombre,
3036The robin loves to fight;
3037But the great and flashing magpie
3038He flies as lovers might.)
3039He told me that in Picardy,
3040An age ago or more,
3041While all his fathers still were eggs,
3042These dusty highways bore
3043Brown singing soldiers marching out
3044Through Picardy to war.°
304530
3046
3047He said that still through chaos
3048Works on the ancient plan,
3049And two things have altered not
3050Since first the world began—
3051The beauty of the wild green earth
3052And the bravery of man.
3053(For the sparrow flies unthinking
3054And quarrels in his flight.
3055The heron trails his legs behind,
3056The lark goes out of sight;
305740
3058
3059But the great and flashing magpie
3060He flies as poets might.)
3061Song of Amiens
3062
3063Lord! How we laughed in Amiens!
3064For here were lights and good French drink,
3065And Marie smiled at everyone,
3066And Madeleine’s new blouse was pink,
3067And Petite Jeanne (who always runs)
3068Served us so charmingly, I think
3069That we forgot the unsleeping guns.
3070Lord! How we laughed in Amiens!
3071Till through the talk there flashed the name
3072Of some great man we left behind.
307310
3074
3075And then a sudden silence came,
3076And even Petite Jeanne (who runs)
3077Stood still to hear, with eyes aflame,
3078The distant mutter of the guns.
3079Ah! How we laughed in Amiens!
3080For there were useless things to buy,
3081Simply because Irène, who served,
3082Had happy laughter in her eye;
3083And Yvonne, bringing sticky buns,
3084Cared nothing that the eastern sky
308520
3086
3087Was lit with flashes from the guns.
3088And still we laughed in Amiens,
3089As dead men laughed a week ago.
3090What cared we if in Delville Wood°
3091The splintered trees saw hell below?
3092We cared . . . We cared . . . But laughter runs
3093The cleanest stream a man may know
3094To rinse him from the taint of guns.
3095
3096[I saw a man this morning]
3097
3098I saw a man this morning
3099Who did not wish to die:
3100I ask and cannot answer,
3101If otherwise wish I.
3102Fair broke the day this morning
3103Against the Dardanelles;°
3104The breeze blew soft, the morn’s cheeks
3105Were cold as cold sea-shells.
3106But other shells are waiting
3107Across the Aegean Sea,
310810
3109
3110Shrapnel and high explosive,
3111Shells and hells for me.
3112O hell of ships and cities,
3113Hell of men like me,
3114Fatal second Helen,
3115Why must I follow thee?°
3116Achilles came to Troyland
3117And I to Chersonese:°
3118He turned from wrath to battle,°
3119And I from three days’ peace.
312020
3121
3122Was it so hard, Achilles,
3123So very hard to die?
3124Thou knewest, and I know not—
3125So much the happier I.
3126I will go back this morning
3127From Imbros over the sea;°
3128Stand in the trench, Achilles,
3129Flame-capped, and shout for me.°
3130IVOR GURNEY (1890–1937)
3131IVOR GURNEY, poet and composer, was born into a Gloucester family of modest means. Benefiting from the patronage of his godfather—a local vicar who gave the young boy free access to his library—Gurney became a chorister at Gloucester Cathedral, and was already composing music in his early teens. Among his Gloucestershire friends were the poet F. W. Harvey and the composer Herbert Howells. In 1911 he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music, where he was taught by Charles Stanford. For all his obvious talents, Gurney could be obstinate and idiosyncratic: although Stanford also counted Bliss, Holst, Ireland, and Vaughan Williams among his pupils, he would later remember Gurney as potentially ‘the biggest’, but least teachable, of them all.1
3132Gurney fell ill in the spring of 1913, suffering from a form of depression. It may have been the first appearance of an undiagnosed mental illness which would cause him to be institutionalized less than a decade later. On this occasion, a return home to Gloucestershire brought recovery, despite severe mood swings which he endured into the following year. When war broke out Gurney volunteered immediately but was turned down because of poor eyesight. As a result of rising casualties, the authorities had become less fussy by February 1915, when Gurney successfully enlisted as a private with the Gloucesters. His motivation was to swap ‘nervous exhaustion’ for ‘healthy’ fatigue: as he told his friend, the musicologist Marion Scott, ‘fatigue from body brings rest to the soul—not so mental fatigue’.2 The discipline of military life, with its fixed schedules and regular meals, together with the comradeship of Gloucestershire soldiers who knew and loved the same landscapes, ensured that Gurney was happier during the War than before or after. This did not imply any militaristic enthusiasm: Gurney told Scott that he was not a soldier but a dirty civilian, and on at least one occasion he was severely reprimanded while searching for the biscuit tin during a heavy bombardment.
3133Gurney would not arrive in France until May 1916. By then he was writing poems in earnest; his first collection, Severn & Somme (1917), was politely received, but with the exception of ‘Pain’ it showed little originality. On Good Friday 1917 Gurney was wounded in the shoulder, his immediate response being to curse ‘the double | Treachery of Fritz to Europe and to English music’. He would have to wait until later that year for the sought-after ‘Blighty’: in September he was gassed at Saint-Julien, and he never returned to the front. The reasons for his discharge were at least as much mental as physical: he suffered a breakdown while convalescing in early 1918, and was suicidal after his relationship with a nurse came to an end. His government pension was temporarily reduced to reflect the fact that his illness had been ‘aggravated but not caused’ by the War.
3134Gurney’s second volume, War’s Embers, appeared in 1919. Despite including what has become his best-known poem, ‘To His Love’, it marked no great advance on Severn & Somme. Yet this constituted the high point of Gurney’s public career as a poet. His music continued to be performed and published: two Housman song cycles, Ludlow and Teme and The Western Playland, would appear in 1923 and 1926 respectively, and Gurney lived just long enough to see an advance copy of an edition of twenty songs published by Oxford University Press. His poetry fared less well, and was rejected repeatedly by editors in the 1920s until he gave up trying. It gradually came into print in the decades after his death, bringing Gurney proper if belated recognition as one of the most important poets of his age.
3135The reasons for Gurney’s neglect are interlinked with his mental illness. After a return to the Royal College of Music petered out, between 1920 and 1922 he led a largely peripatetic existence, working variously as a farm labourer, a cinema pianist, and a tax officer. His family became increasingly concerned about his erratic behaviour, and he himself admitted that ‘something is more wrong than formerly’. Suicidal and suffering from delusions, in 1922 he was incarcerated first at Barnwood House in Gloucester (from which he promptly escaped) and then at the City of London Mental Hospital at Dartford. The poems and letters from this time are harrowing: ‘Do not leave me here, I pray . . . Death would be rest from torment. The use of life is so far from here.’3 He would remain at Dartford until his death from tuberculosis fifteen years later.
3136Gurney’s productivity in the early years of his incarceration was astonishing. The single month of March 1925, for example, saw the completion of seven song settings and four volumes of poetry. These were uneven and contained inconsistencies that a good editor would have remedied, but at their strongest they rank alongside the best poetry of the war. (‘The Retreat’ is an extraordinary example of how the best and worst of Gurney exists side by side.) Gurney considered himself to be ‘the first of the war poets’, and constantly upbraided his nation for refusing to honour him.4 Individual poems were published occasionally, courtesy of J. C. Squire at the London Mercury; otherwise his work went unseen except among a small group of friends who ensured its preservation. Dispirited, Gurney seems to have stopped writing after 1926 save for one or two stray poems.
3137Pain
3138
3139Pain, pain continual; pain unending;
3140Hard even to the roughest, but to those
3141Hungry for beauty . . . Not the wisest knows,
3142Nor most pitiful-hearted, what the wending
3143Of one hour’s way meant. Grey monotony lending
3144Weight to the grey skies, grey mud where goes
3145An army of grey bedrenched scarecrows in rows
3146Careless at last of cruellest Fate-sending.
3147Seeing the pitiful eyes of men foredone,°
3148Or horses shot, too tired merely to stir,
314910
3150
3151Dying in shell-holes both, slain by the mud.
3152Men broken, shrieking even to hear a gun.—
3153Till pain grinds down, or lethargy numbs her,
3154The amazed heart cries angrily out on God.
3155To the Prussians of England
3156
3157When I remember plain heroic strength
3158And shining virtue shown by Ypres pools,°
3159Then read the blither written by knaves for fools°
3160In praise of English soldiers lying at length,°
3161Who purely dream what England shall be made
3162Gloriously new, free of the old stains
3163By us, who pay the price that must be paid,
3164Will freeze all winter over Ypres plains.
3165Our silly dreams of peace you put aside
3166And Brotherhood of man, for you will see°
316710
3168
3169An armed Mistress, braggart of the tide
3170Her children slaves, under your mastery.
3171We’ll have a word there too, and forge a knife,
3172Will cut the cancer threatens England’s life.°
3173To His Love
3174
3175He’s gone, and all our plans°
3176Are useless indeed.
3177We’ll walk no more on Cotswold°
3178Where the sheep feed
3179Quietly and take no heed.
3180His body that was so quick
3181Is not as you
3182Knew it, on Severn river°
3183Under the blue
3184Driving our small boat through.
318510
3186
3187You would not know him now . . .
3188But still he died
3189Nobly, so cover him over
3190With violets of pride
3191Purple from Severn side.
3192Cover him, cover him soon!°
3193And with thick-set
3194Masses of memoried flowers—°
3195Hide that red wet
3196Thing I must somehow forget.
319720
3198The Bugle
3199
3200High over London
3201Victory floats
3202And high, high, high,
3203Harsh bugle notes
3204Rend and embronze the air.°
3205Triumph is there
3206With sombre sunbeams mixed of Autumn rare.
3207Over and over the loud brass makes its cry,
3208Summons to exultancy
3209Of past in Victory.
321010
3211
3212Yet in the gray street women void of grace
3213Chatter of trifles
3214Hurry to barter, wander aimlessly
3215The heedless town,
3216Men lose their souls in care of business,
3217As men had not been mown
3218Like corn swathes East of Ypres or the Somme°
3219Never again home
3220Or beauty most beloved to see, for that
3221London Town might still be busy at
322220
3223
3224Its sordid cares
3225Traffic of wares.
3226O Town, O Town
3227In soldiers’ faces one might see the fear
3228That once again they should be called to bear
3229Arms, and to save England from her own.
3230Billet
3231
3232O, but the racked clear tired strained frames we had!
3233Tumbling in the new billet on to straw bed,
3234Dead asleep in eye shutting. Waking as sudden
3235To a golden and azure roof, a golden ratcheted
3236Lovely web of blue seen and blue shut, and cobwebs and tiles,
3237And gray wood dusty with time. June’s girlish kindest smiles.
3238Rest at last and no danger for another week, a seven-day week.
3239But one Private took on himself a Company’s heart to speak,
3240‘I wish to bloody Hell I was just going to Brewery—surely°
3241To work all day (in Stroud) and be free at tea-time—allowed°
324210
3243
3244Resting when one wanted, and a joke in season,
3245To change clothes and take a girl to Horsepool’s turning,°
3246Or drink a pint at “Travellers Rest”, and find no cloud.
3247Then God and man and war and Gloucestershire would have a reason,
3248But I get no good in France, getting killed, cleaning off mud.’
3249He spoke the heart of all of us—the hidden thought burning, unturning.
3250First Time In
3251
3252After the dread tales and red yarns of the Line°
3253Anything might have come to us; but the divine
3254Afterglow brought us up to a Welsh colony
3255Hiding in sandbag ditches, whispering consolatory
3256Soft foreign things. Then we were taken in
3257To low huts candle-lit shaded close by slitten°
3258Oilsheets, and there but boys gave us kind welcome;
3259So that we looked out as from the edge of home.
3260Sang us Welsh things, and changed all former notions
3261To human hopeful things. And the next days’ guns
326210
3263
3264Nor any line-pangs ever quite could blot out
3265That strangely beautiful entry to War’s rout,
3266Candles they gave us precious and shared over-rations—
3267Ulysses found little more in his wanderings without doubt.°
3268‘David of the White Rock’, the ‘Slumber Song’ so soft, and that°
3269Beautiful tune to which roguish words by Welsh pit boys
3270Are sung—but never more beautiful than here under the guns’ noise.°
3271Strange Hells
3272
3273There are strange Hells within the minds War made
3274Not so often, not so humiliatingly afraid
3275As one would have expected—the racket and fear guns made.
3276One Hell the Gloucester soldiers they quite put out;
3277Their first bombardment, when in combined black shout
3278Of fury, guns aligned, they ducked lower their heads—
3279And sang with diaphragms fixed beyond all dreads,
3280That tin and stretched-wire tinkle, that blither of tune;°
3281‘Après la guerre fini’ till Hell all had come down.°
328212 inch—6 inch and 18 pounders hammering Hell’s thunders.°
328310
3284
3285Where are they now on State-doles, or showing shop-patterns°
3286Or walking town to town sore in borrowed tatterns°
3287Or begged. Some civic routine one never learns.
3288The heart burns—but has to keep out of face how heart burns.
3289Farewell
3290
3291What! to have had gas, and to expect
3292No more than a week’s sick, and to get Blighty—°
3293This is the gods’ gift, and not anyway exact—
3294To Ypres, or bad St Julien or Somme Farm.°
3295Don Hancox, shall I no more see your face frore,°
3296Gloucester-good in the first light (But you are dead!)
3297Shall I see no more Monger with india rubber°
3298Twisted face—(But machine gun caught him and his grimace.)
3299No more to march happy with such good comrades,
3300Watching the sky, the brown land, the bayonet blades
330110
3302
3303Moving—to muse on music forgetting the pack.
3304Nor to hear Gloucester with Stroud debating the lack
3305Of goodliness or virtue in girls or farmlands.
3306Nor to hear Cheltenham hurling at Cotswold demands
3307Of civilization; nor West Severn joking at East Severn?°
3308No more—across the azure and the brown lands
3309The morning mist, or high day clear of rack
3310Shall move my dear knees—or feel them frosted, shivering
3311By Somme or Aubers—or to have a courage from faces°
3312Full of all West England, Her God given graces.
331320
3314
3315There was not one of all that Battalion
3316Loved his comrades as well as I—but kept shy.
3317Or said in verse, what his voice would not rehearse.
3318So gassed I went back—to Northlands where voices speak soft as in verse.°
3319And after to meet evil not fit for the thought one touch to dwell on.°
3320Dear Battalion, the dead of you would not have let
3321Your comrade be so long—prey for the unquiet
3322Black evil of the unspoken and concealed pit.
3323You would have had me safe—dead or free happy alive.
3324They bruise my head and torture with their own past-hate
332530
3326
3327Sins of the past, and lie so as earth moves at it—°
3328You dead ones—I lay with you under the unbroken wires once.°
3329La Rime
3330
3331Fritz caught a sight of a fatigue party going down—°
3332Probably just ended—having escaped observation,
3333So this offended Fritz and he let fly
3334With everything of powder, cordite or T.N.T.°
3335One did his bootlace up, one lit his pipe and cursed
3336Ration tobacco, and said ‘Boys this is war at the worst,’
3337One blew his nose, one plucked at a dead nettle
3338Growing above the trench side—and one made rattle
3339The breech of his rifle in ragtime, nobody ran.°
3340One having written seven lines to rhyme and scan,
334110
3342
3343(So to say) raised his umbrella and cursed Fritz—
3344Who never had, nor never would produce poets,
3345And at the Red House, said sudden, ‘I see that’s the one,’°
3346Finished his eighth line and blasted home-critics to bits.°
3347Serenade
3348
3349It was after the Somme, our line was quieter,°
3350Wires mended, neither side daring attacker
3351Or aggressor to be—the guns equal, the wires a thick hedge,
3352When there sounded, (O past days for ever confounded!)
3353The tune of Schubert which belonged to days mathematical,°
3354Effort of spirit bearing fruit worthy, actual.
3355The gramophone for an hour was my quiet’s mocker,
3356Until I cried, ‘Give us “Heldenleben”, “Heldenleben”,’°
3357The Gloucesters cried out ‘Strauss is our favourite wir haben°
3358Sich geliebt’. So silence fell, Aubers’ front slept,°
335910
3360
3361And the sentries an unsentimental silence kept.
3362True, the size of the rum ration was still a shocker
3363But at last over Aubers the majesty of the dawn’s veil swept.
3364Joyeuse et Durandal
3365
3366Joyeuse, O lovely bayonet of the Old Army°
3367Why have they given us this gray thing wherewith to slay?
3368Durandal, you are longer, certainly not stronger,
3369And have no looks to speak of—we would risk the danger
3370Of an extra three inches of German weapon
3371If they would grant that bare bright steel again.
3372War Office, with spare green envelopes we would charm thee,°
3373And do worrying fatigues on Rest for a day,°
3374Entreat the Colonel and the Sergeant major
3375So we might joyously have our gaze upon
337610
3377
3378This bright and fashioned sword, not for honour, in vain . . .
3379For they would fight with formulae and with figures,
3380But we with songs and praises, and more soldiers;
3381Having caressed that fair blade with long fingers.
3382The Stokes Gunners
3383
3384When Fritz and we were nearly on friendly terms—°
3385Of mornings, furtively, (O moral insects, O worms!)
3386A group of khaki people would saunter into
3387Our sector and plant a stove-pipe directed on to°
3388Fritz trenches, insert black things, shaped like Ticklers jams—°
3389The stove pipe hissed a hundred times and one might count to
3390A hundred damned unexpected explosions,
3391Which was all very well, but the group having finished performance
3392And hissed and whistled, would take their contrivance down to
3393Head quarters to report damage, and hand in forms
339410
3395
3396While the Gloucesters who desired peace or desired battle°
3397Were left to pay the piper—Cursing Stokes to Hell, Montreal and Seattle.°
3398The Bohemians
3399
3400Certain people would not clean their buttons,
3401Nor polish buckles after latest fashions,
3402Preferred their hair long, putties comfortable,°
3403Barely escaping hanging, indeed hardly able
3404In Bridge and smoking without army cautions
3405Spending hours that sped like evil for quickness,
3406(While others burnished brasses, earned promotions)
3407These were those ones who jested in the trench,
3408While others argued of army ways, and wrenched
3409What little soul they had still further from shape,
341010
3411
3412And died off one by one, or became officers
3413Without the first of dream, the ghost of notions
3414Of ever becoming soldiers, or smart and neat,
3415Surprised as ever to find the army capable
3416Of sounding ‘Lights out’ to break a game of Bridge,°
3417As to fear candles would set a barn alight.
3418In Artois or Picardy they lie—free of useless fashions.°
3419The Retreat
3420
3421After three weeks of freezing and thawing over
3422Against Chaulnes; mud dreadful; with water cover°
3423Of gumboots in the low places; and ice of nights;
3424They marched us out sore footed to far billets;
3425Straw and warm tea; more bread; letters more . . .
3426Where for a week we recovered; and now less sore
3427Our feet were—beer there was; a little bread, wine;
3428But not the strength they asked of making roads fine
3429With weak bodies; sore feet; and hungry bellies.
3430Warmth there was, and sleep—the barn a Palace.
343110
3432
3433When suddenly the news came, Fritz has retreated . . . °
3434What! from Chaulnes wired yard deep—where a shot greeted
3435Any patrol at midnight moving strict ways,
3436None else to take: it was a most strict terrible maze.
3437It was true—we marched three days—to our old place,
3438Passed through a hedge of No mans land and saw far°
3439Other lines, Pillboxes; Headquarters; and farther
3440Artillery wired positions, Heads of Divisions—
3441Passed; came to Omiecourt; found billets; it was but the fractions°
3442Of Farms—but wood in plenty, and water pure
344320
3444
3445Fire warm; billets warm while the North wind sheer
3446Tore a space round corners of our one small room.
3447There was a Mass book, great Plain Song in the gloom
3448Of the broken church with German Journals and such . . .
3449I found a score of postcards in a billet, to catch
3450All of them, and to be sorry afterwards . . .
3451But first finding den and souvenirs as rewards.
3452After that onward slowly till roads we had mended;
3453Weak, hungry; feeling the heart labour bended;
3454To come to the last rise, see Somme azure of blaze°
345530
3456
3457(Soft March . . . it was warm of sun), and go onwards; across
3458The pioneer mending of the arch broken; by planking
3459Laid across, rattling but standing strain, Transport clanking,
3460Artillery. We passed Y, and another huge mined destroyed place;°
3461(Terribly huge) and on till Caulaincourt valley of grace,°
3462Home of the dead men of Napoleon’s man
3463Lay in the Mausoleum, expecting never invasion,
3464Nor to see Gloucesters guarding a place that few°
3465Should touch, but of the old rule Rousseau or Le Sage knew—°
3466But Caulaincourt glad enough boys were there who had stuff
346740
3468
3469Of such within them communion with the smooth and rough
3470Of road and valley gleaming with lit sapling water
3471Young Artois sister to become Somme’s one daughter°
3472Glimmering beauty before ‘Lights Out’ stirring heart out°
3473To tears. (I climbed weak kneed, I saw Fallow unploughed
3474And the darling valley . . .) German prisoners passed, defiantly;
3475One gaily; and we went on to artillery before the town
3476Vermand: where (road mending) our Captain rode too far shown°
3477And got a blast of gun barrage—frightened his horse—A Company
3478Took Vermand—two prisoners; and our first trophy
347950
3480
3481A machine-gun . . . So further to high banks France had raised
3482Long ago against the Eastward threat, nobly placed
3483To be the guard of Vermand—Caulaincourt, Somme’s Land;
3484Free men making, cursing, arms-taking to Hell out of hand;
3485Digging with sulky vigour; or in furious paced
3486Frenzy; promised dismissal and an early end.
3487(We knew) Fine mounds of Roman sort—we saw looming
3488First through the dim night . . . then one miserable week;
3489Through displeasure of the weather; body sick; heart sick
3490Saw change from green to white, white to golden;
349160
3492
3493With sleet and sunshine changing—with storm and sun frowning.
3494First night I lay forward freezing, while others dug pits—
3495A lump of panged ice—Two hours watching keen for Fritz:
3496Who saw no more than flurries of snow against the spinneys°
3497Or bare ridge . . . Next day rested—at night advanced
3498To the near wood searched and left; nothing but fancies
3499Of shadows; nothing but dry leaves rustling fortissimo.°
3500Left again—spent one day of before Spring sun.
3501But next to be bombarded by Fritz while guarded
3502Our own feeble guns with a third of such.
350370
3504
3505So we dug in, under the trunks and brush.
3506Stayed—in holes—with a sheet to get warmth and shelter
3507(On which the winter leaves pattered helter skelter
3508And the trees dripped.) I was sentry—with two others;
3509When suddenly two hundred off three great Germans
3510Appeared . . . the sentry (duty) ran quietly off
3511To warn the others. His friend went off in the smothers
3512Of embarrassment . . . I alone (good shot) in the foreground?
3513Now Ivor Gurney lonely, make no sound wait.
3514The others are at the wood end; now waste no shot.
351580
3516
3517No noise, no noise . . . To find (as in once; a mine)
3518My equipment tangled up in my right ear; the bayonet
3519Hurting my ribs; the foresight; O where the foresight
3520Against the woods gunmetal, most lively shine?
3521They touched the wood, I fired straight at the middle one
3522No move; now at the right side of the left one.
3523No move; again between the right one and middle one . . .
3524When up there dashed my Platoon crashing branches down;°
3525And off went Germans as swift as deer as soon
3526To turn; great, well fed men to our hungry:
352790
3528
3529Two Corporals; one over fed, lusty Lance Corporal
3530I should guess . . . How did I miss them! How did I miss?
3531But I refuse to believe (flatly refuse)
3532And believe that men may be shot through middle bodies
3533Before enemies without dropping—I who had hit posts
3534As hard as ghosts to hit in Verey lights of Laventie . . . °
3535Posts and any echoing thing . . . It was, and yet is
3536Absurd to me to think the belly may not be wholly
3537Shot through—by a tiny Bullet of our Army
3538And the man not stand up without sign of folly
3539100
3540
3541Or wound . . . The nicest men I had seen for six
3542Weeks; to our poor scarecrows of weak pulses . . .
3543Moving by will—hungry, yet comradely;
3544While these comfortable Burghers came over like country squires°
3545To see the work of the farm hand; happy after white coffee;
3546And a good gossip before glowing half wood fires . . .
3547(O! O! Newspapers Anglais, Français Papers daily,
3548What have you told us of hungry or cowed Bavaria, Saxony?°
3549What yarns of three course dinners, when here the sinners
3550Come overland 8 mile an hour, and do it easily?
3551110
3552
3553And walk off indigestion after meals like millionaires
3554For size (and accomplishment) O Wurtemburgherie,
3555Is this the population you fake your figures on?
3556Is this the beaten horde of conscripts, beginners?°
3557(Two as nice men as I’d ever meet again . . .))
3558So we talked over . . . they cursed me . . . the little skirmish;
3559Cursed also and felt excitement and watched them vanish—
3560Like record breakers, over the chalk slope borders.
3561‘Good bye’—‘You chaps, I’m sure I hit them in the guts.
3562Bang through or near . . . You know I have hit dark posts,
3563120
3564
3565My equipment round my neck . . .’ To which only jests
3566Were answer; and ‘no excuses for a miss at twelve yards, Sir!’
3567Next night to trench again—and they told us we were going
3568Over the top to take some unseen damned wiring
3569Over the crest . . . They bombarded, and our guns cutting were trying.
3570At seven the drizzle began; at 10 we formed in Line . . .
3571And (they too fast) went over across Country
3572I grumbling, and half running; while silence sombrely
3573Hung over all things—the air misty almost rainy.
3574I weak as a rabbit—‘How much longer, dammit?’
3575130
3576
3577They said ‘Shut up’. I said ‘I wish this were over!’
3578They said ‘Shut up’. When suddenly up went a cheer.
3579The men on the left had hit it . . . I stumbled on and struck it
3580Blind eyed, upfaced . . . fearing wire high and to be scratch faced,
3581Hit wire—and lay down . . . seeing fires—whether of theirs
3582Or ours, cutting the wires I knew not—only from behind
3583The impatient second line shot past my helmet,
3584And the machine guns blazed away, lower lower
3585(O Christ, what pain—) and lower till my body did cower
3586Stuck to the mire—and no holes at all in the wire.
3587140
3588
3589So much for artillery fire . . .
3590The Company jester and my little lieutenant
3591Crept about; snipping odd wires . . . ten yards I guessed went
3592Before us (or over ten foot) and shells came down, and that damned machine gun
3593Sprayed us . . . O down; further down; Vermand,
3594You are too chalky a land . . . We retreated . . . dug shallow
3595Pits—the moon above the mist made a mellow
3596Light, transfused—we could see an old machine gun post . . .
3597And nothing more—we were a little down in the hollow.
3598Again returning, to catch the same—lighter now, see wires
3599150
3600
3601Thick against dares; and no more forrader; to retreat again;
3602When suddenly my arm went blazing with bright ardour of pain;
3603The end of music . . . I knelt down and cursed the double
3604Treachery of Fritz to Europe and to English music;°
3605Cursed Pomerania, Saxony, Wurtemburg, Bavaria,
3606Prussia, Rheinland, Mecklenburg, Pomerania
3607Again . . . (But had forgotten Franconia, Swabia,)°
3608Then said ‘You chaps, she’s beginning to move again’;
3609Borrowed a rifle—shot one shot to say ‘These things were so’.
3610‘My arm—she’ll stay on yet: I believe it’s a Blighty . . .’°
3611160
3612
3613And the stretcher bearers bound it up carefully, neatly . . .
3614In the darkness whitely . . . And I left them all, vulgar soldiers to brawl;
3615Passed through reserve in the sunken Road . . . Oxfords I just could°
3616See, who asked me news ‘O wires, wires, wires, sticks, wood . . .
3617Machine guns, machine guns, shells . . . Nothing else: goodnight’
3618And went off through a barrage spraying the hillside
3619(Machine-guns) risking so much . . . tired out and careless;
3620Having a Blighty; hunger; weakness; by disgust fearless;
3621And saw the downward slope to Blighty and new hope.
362223 April 1925
3623Signallers
3624
3625To be signallers and to be relieved two hours
3626Before the common infantry—and to come down
3627Hurriedly to where estaminet’s friendliest doors°
3628Opened—where before the vulgar brawling common crew
3629Could take the seats for tired backs, or take the wine
3630Best suited for palates searching for delicate flavours
3631(Or pretty tints) to take from the mind trench ways and strain,
3632Though it be on tick, with delicately wangled sly flavours.°
3633Then having obtained grace from the lady of the inn—
3634How good to sit still and sip with all appreciative lip,
363510
3636
3637(After the grease and skilly of line-cookhouse tea,)°
3638The cool darkling texture of the heavenly dew
3639Of wine—to smoke as one pleased in a house of courtesy—
3640Signallers gentlemen all away from the vulgar
3641Infantry—so dull and dirty and so underpaid,
3642So wont to get killed and leave the cautious signallers
3643To signal down the message that they were dead.°
3644Anyway, distinction or not—there was a quiet
3645Hour or so before the Company fours halted, and were°
3646Formed two deep, and dismissed and paid after leaden dilatory
364720
3648
3649Hanging around, to bolt (eager) to find those apparently
3650Innocent signallers drinking on tick, at last beer.
3651It is Near Toussaints
3652
3653It is near Toussaints, the living and dead will say,
3654‘Have they ended it? What has happened to Gurney?’
3655And along the leaf-strewed roads of France many brown shades
3656Will go, recalling singing, and a comrade for whom also they
3657Had hoped well. His Honour them had happier made.
3658Curse all that hates good. When I spoke of my breaking
3659(Not understood) in London, they imagined of the taking°
3660Vengeance, and seeing things were different in future.
3661(A musician was a cheap honourable and nice creature.)
3662Kept sympathetic silence; heard their packs creaking
366310
3664
3665And burst into song—Hilaire Belloc was all our Master.°
3666On the night of all the dead, they will remember me,
3667Pray Michael, Nicholas, Maries, lost in Novembery°
3668River-mist in the old City of our dear love, and batter°
3669At doors about the farms crying ‘Our war poet is lost’
3670‘Madame, no bon!’—and cry his two names, warningly, sombrely.°
3671The Silent One
3672
3673Who died on the wires, and hung there, one of two—
3674Who for his hours of life had chattered through
3675Infinite lovely chatter of Bucks accent;°
3676Yet faced unbroken wires; stepped over, and went,
3677A noble fool, faithful to his stripes—and ended.°
3678But I weak, hungry, and willing only for the chance
3679Of line—to fight in the line, lay down under unbroken
3680Wires, and saw the flashes, and kept unshaken.
3681Till the politest voice—a finicking accent, said:°
3682‘Do you think you might crawl through, there; there’s a hole;’ In the afraid
368310
3684
3685Darkness, shot at; I smiled, as politely replied—
3686‘I’m afraid not, Sir.’ There was no hole, no way to be seen.
3687Nothing but chance of death, after tearing of clothes
3688Kept flat, and watched the darkness, hearing bullets whizzing—
3689And thought of music—and swore deep heart’s deep oaths.
3690(Polite to God—) and retreated and came on again.
3691Again retreated—and a second time faced the screen.°
3692ISAAC ROSENBERG (1890–1918)
3693ISAAC ROSENBERG was born in 1890 to impoverished Jewish refugees, his father having fled Lithuania four years before to escape conscription into the Russian army. The Rosenbergs spoke little English, and enjoyed few if any social advantages: Isaac’s father scraped a living as a pedlar, which his mother supplemented through sewing and embroidery. When Rosenberg was seven, his family moved from Bristol to east London, and at 14 he left school to become apprentice to an engraver. Aged 20 he joined the Slade School of Art with the generous support of a patron. Around this time, he became part of a brilliant network of radical Jewish artists and writers—later known as the Whitechapel Boys—who included among their number David Bomberg, Mark Gertler, Joseph Leftwich, and John Rodker.
3694During the years leading up to the outbreak of war, Rosenberg vacillated between poetry and painting, unsure where his real gifts lay. In a letter probably from 1910, he expressed the ambition to ‘take up painting seriously; I think I might do something at that; but poetry—I despair of ever writing excellent poetry’. By 1915 he had changed his mind: ‘I believe in myself more as a poet than a painter.’ That same year, Rosenberg enlisted in the Bantam Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment. (Accepting men under five feet three, it was, he reported, ‘the only regiment my build allowed’.)1 From that moment, he had little opportunity to paint.
3695Rosenberg was an unlikely soldier. Sharing his family’s pacifist ideals and lacking any feelings of patriotism, he argued from the start that war was ‘against all [his] principles of justice’, and that he ‘would be doing the most criminal thing a man can do’. Yet as he explained in an unsent letter, ‘There is certainly a strong temptation to join when you are making no money.’2 Having arrived in France in June 1916, Rosenberg found himself the target of anti-Semitic bullying: ‘Why do they sneer at me?’, he asked in a short lyric, ‘The Jew’. Rosenberg’s acute awareness that Jews faced each other across no-man’s-land, fighting a bloody civil war, shaped his best-known poem, ‘Break of Day in the Trenches’, in which the ‘cosmopolitan’ rat (a common symbol in anti-Semitic discourse) has ‘touched this English hand’ and will soon ‘do the same to a German’. Published in the Chicago journal Poetry at Ezra Pound’s instigation, it was one of very few poems by Rosenberg to reach a wide audience during his lifetime.
3696Rosenberg considered ‘Break of Day in the Trenches’ to be ‘as simple as ordinary talk’, but he admitted that he could be obscure, much against his own desire for ‘Simple Poetry that is where an interesting complexity of thought is kept in tone and right value to the dominating idea so that it is understandable and still ungraspable.’ Economy of expression sometimes slipped into mannerism and became an effective impediment to understanding. Yet Rosenberg’s best poems create a disturbing phantasmagoria out of their compression. The compound words of ‘Dead Man’s Dump’—‘God-ancestralled essences’, ‘blood-dazed intelligence’, ‘quivering-bellied mules’—came naturally to a Yiddish-speaking poet. When Rosenberg complained that Walt Whitman’s diction was ‘so diffused’, he was criticizing a writer who, in this respect, worked at the opposite pole.3
3697In January 1918 Rosenberg described his conditions in lines to Edward Marsh, some of which the military censor saw fit to delete:
3698I am back in the trenches which are terrible now. We spend most of our time pulling each other out of the mud. I am not fit at all now and am more in the way than any use. You see I appear in excellent health and a doctor will make no distinction between health and strength. I am not strong. What is happening to me now is more tragic than the ‘passion play’. Christ never endured what I endure. It is breaking me completely.4
3699He was killed while on night patrol just over two months later.
3700[A worm fed on the heart of Corinth]
3701
3702A worm fed on the heart of Corinth,
3703Babylon and Rome.°
3704Not Paris raped tall Helen,°
3705But this incestuous worm
3706Who lured her vivid beauty
3707To his amorphous sleep.°
3708England! famous as Helen
3709Is thy betrothal sung.
3710To him the shadowless,
3711More amorous than Solomon.°
371210
3713Break of Day in the Trenches
3714
3715The darkness crumbles away.
3716It is the same old Druid Time as ever.°
3717Only a live thing leaps my hand,
3718A queer sardonic rat,
3719As I pull the parapet’s poppy°
3720To stick behind my ear.
3721Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew
3722Your cosmopolitan sympathies.
3723Now you have touched this English hand
3724You will do the same to a German°
372510
3726
3727Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure
3728To cross the sleeping green between.
3729It seems, odd thing, you grin as you pass
3730Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes,
3731Less chanced than you for life,
3732Bonds to the whims of murder,
3733Sprawled in the bowels of the earth,
3734The torn fields of France.
3735What do you see in our eyes
3736At the shrieking iron and flame
373720
3738
3739Hurl’d through still heavens?
3740What quaver—what heart aghast?
3741Poppies whose roots are in man’s veins
3742Drop, and are ever dropping,°
3743But mine in my ear is safe—
3744Just a little white with the dust.
3745August 1914
3746
3747What in our lives is burnt
3748In the fire of this?
3749The heart’s dear granary?
3750The much we shall miss?
3751Three lives hath one life—
3752Iron, honey, gold.
3753The gold, the honey gone—
3754Left is the hard and cold.
3755Iron are the lives
3756Molten right through our youth.
375710
3758
3759A burnt space through ripe fields,
3760A fair mouth’s broken tooth.
3761Louse Hunting
3762
3763Nudes—stark aglisten
3764Yelling in lurid glee. Grinning faces of fiends
3765And raging limbs
3766Whirl over the floor one fire,
3767For a shirt verminously busy
3768Yon soldier tore from his throat
3769With oaths
3770Godhead might shrink at, but not the lice.°
3771And soon the shirt was aflare
3772Over the candle he’d lit while we lay.
377310
3774
3775Then we all sprung up and stript
3776To hunt the vermin brood.
3777Soon like a devils’ pantomime
3778The place was raging.
3779See the silhouettes agape,
3780See the gibbering shadows
3781Mixed with the battled arms on the wall.
3782See gargantuan hooked fingers
3783Dug in supreme flesh
3784To smutch the supreme littleness.°
378520
3786
3787See the merry limbs in hot Highland fling
3788Because some wizard vermin
3789Charmed from the quiet this revel
3790When our ears were half lulled
3791By the dark music
3792Blown from Sleep’s trumpet.
3793From France
3794
3795The spirit drank the Café lights;
3796All the hot life that glittered there,
3797And heard men say to women gay,
3798‘Life is just so in France’.
3799The spirit dreams of Café lights,
3800And golden faces and soft tones,
3801And hears men groan to broken men,
3802‘This is not Life in France’.
3803Heaped stones and a charred signboard shows
3804With grass between and dead folk under,°
380510
3806
3807And some birds sing, while the spirit takes wing.°
3808And this is life in France.
3809Returning, we hear the larks
3810
3811Sombre the night is.
3812And though we have our lives, we know
3813What sinister threat lurks there.
3814Dragging these anguished limbs, we only know
3815This poison-blasted track opens on our camp—
3816On a little safe sleep.
3817But hark! joy—joy—strange joy.
3818Lo! heights of night ringing with unseen larks.°
3819Music showering our upturned list’ning faces.
3820Death could drop from the dark
382110
3822
3823As easily as song—
3824But song only dropped,°
3825Like a blind man’s dream on the sand
3826By dangerous tides,
3827Like a girl’s dark hair for she dreams no ruin lies there,
3828Or her kisses where a serpent hides.
3829Dead Man’s Dump
3830
3831The plunging limbers over the shattered track°
3832Racketed with their rusty freight,
3833Stuck out like many crowns of thorns,°
3834And the rusty stakes like sceptres old
3835To stay the flood of brutish men°
3836Upon our brothers dear.
3837The wheels lurched over sprawled dead
3838But pained them not, though their bones crunched,
3839Their shut mouths made no moan,
3840They lie there huddled, friend and foeman,
384110
3842
3843Man born of man, and born of woman,°
3844And shells go crying over them
3845From night till night and now.
3846Earth has waited for them
3847All the time of their growth
3848Fretting for their decay:
3849Now she has them at last!
3850In the strength of their strength
3851Suspended—stopped and held.
3852What fierce imaginings their dark souls lit
385320
3854
3855Earth! have they gone into you?
3856Somewhere they must have gone,
3857And flung on your hard back
3858Is their soul’s sack,
3859Emptied of God-ancestralled essences.
3860Who hurled them out? Who hurled?
3861None saw their spirits’ shadow shake the grass,°
3862Or stood aside for the half used life to pass
3863Out of those doomed nostrils and the doomed mouth,
3864When the swift iron burning bee
386530
3866
3867Drained the wild honey of their youth.
3868What of us, who flung on the shrieking pyre,
3869Walk, our usual thoughts untouched,
3870Our lucky limbs as on ichor fed,°
3871Immortal seeming ever?
3872Perhaps when the flames beat loud on us,
3873A fear may choke in our veins
3874And the startled blood may stop.
3875The air is loud with death,
3876The dark air spurts with fire
387740
3878
3879The explosions ceaseless are.
3880Timelessly now, some minutes past,
3881These dead strode time with vigorous life,
3882Till the shrapnel called ‘an end!’
3883But not to all. In bleeding pangs
3884Some borne on stretchers dreamed of home,
3885Dear things, war-blotted from their hearts.
3886A man’s brains splattered on
3887A stretcher-bearer’s face;
3888His shook shoulders slipped their load,
388950
3890
3891But when they bent to look again
3892The drowning soul was sunk too deep
3893For human tenderness.
3894They left this dead with the older dead,
3895Stretched at the cross roads.
3896Burnt black by strange decay
3897Their sinister faces lie
3898The lid over each eye,
3899The grass and coloured clay
3900More motion have than they,
390160
3902
3903Joined to the great sunk silences.
3904Here is one not long dead;
3905His dark hearing caught our far wheels,
3906And the choked soul stretched weak hands
3907To reach the living word the far wheels said,
3908The blood-dazed intelligence beating for light,
3909Crying through the suspense of the far torturing wheels
3910Swift for the end to break,
3911Or the wheels to break,
3912Cried as the tide of the world broke over his sight.
391370
3914
3915Will they come? Will they ever come?
3916Even as the mixed hoofs of the mules,
3917The quivering-bellied mules,
3918And the rushing wheels all mixed
3919With his tortured upturned sight,
3920So we crashed round the bend,
3921We heard his weak scream,
3922We heard his very last sound,
3923And our wheels grazed his dead face.°
3924Daughters of War
3925
3926Space beats the ruddy freedom of their limbs—
3927Their naked dances with man’s spirit naked
3928By the root side of the tree of life
3929(The underside of things
3930And shut from earth’s profoundest eyes).
3931I saw in prophetic gleams
3932These mighty daughters in their dances
3933Beckon each soul aghast from its crimson corpse
3934To mix in their glittering dances.
3935I heard the mighty daughters’ giant sighs
393610
3937
3938In sleepless passion for the sons of valour,
3939And envy of the days of flesh
3940Barring their love with mortal boughs across,—
3941The mortal boughs—the mortal tree of life,
3942The old bark burnt with iron wars
3943They blow to a live flame
3944To char the young green days
3945And reach the occult soul;—they have no softer lure—
3946No softer lure than the savage ways of death.
3947We were satisfied of our Lords the moon and the sun
394820
3949
3950To take our wage of sleep and bread and warmth—
3951These maidens came—these strong everliving Amazons,°
3952And in an easy might their wrists
3953Of night’s sway and noon’s sway the sceptres brake,
3954Clouding the wild—the soft lustres of our eyes.
3955Clouding the wild lustres, the clinging tender lights;
3956Driving the darkness into the flame of day,
3957With the Amazonian wind of them
3958Over our corroding faces
3959That must be broken—broken for evermore
396030
3961
3962So the soul can leap out
3963Into their huge embraces.
3964Tho’ there are human faces
3965Best sculptures of Deity,
3966And sinews lusted after
3967By the Archangels tall,
3968Even these must leap to the love-heat of these maidens
3969From the flame of terrene days,°
3970Leaving grey ashes to the wind—to the wind.
3971One (whose great lifted face,
397240
3973
3974Where wisdom’s strength and beauty’s strength
3975And the thewed strength of large beasts°
3976Moved and merged, gloomed and lit)
3977Was speaking, surely, as the earth-men’s earth fell away;
3978Whose new hearing drunk the sound
3979Where pictures lutes and mountains mixed
3980With the loosed spirit of a thought,
3981Essenced to language, thus—
3982‘My sisters force their males
3983From the doomed earth, from the doomed glee
398450
3985
3986And hankering of hearts.
3987Frail hands gleam up through the human quagmire, and lips of ash
3988Seem to wail, as in sad faded paintings
3989Far sunken and strange.
3990My sisters have their males
3991Clean of the dust of old days
3992That clings about those white hands,
3993And yearns in those voices sad.
3994But these shall not see them,
3995Or think of them in any days or years,
399660
3997
3998They are my sisters’ lovers in other days and years.’
3999[Through these pale cold days]
4000
4001Through these pale cold days
4002What dark faces burn
4003Out of three thousand years,°
4004And their wild eyes yearn,
4005While underneath their brows
4006Like waifs their spirits grope
4007For the pools of Hebron again—°
4008For Lebanon’s summer slope.°
4009They leave these blond still days
4010In dust behind their tread
401110
4012
4013They see with living eyes
4014How long they have been dead.
4015
4016
4017The Night Patrol
4018
4019France, March 1916.
4020Over the top! The wire’s thin here, unbarbed
4021Plain rusty coils, not staked, and low enough:
4022Full of old tins, though—‘When you’re through, all three,
4023Aim quarter left for fifty yards or so,
4024Then straight for that new piece of German wire;
4025See if it’s thick, and listen for a while
4026For sounds of working; don’t run any risks;
4027About an hour; now, over!’
4028And we placed
4029Our hands on the topmost sand-bags, leapt, and stood
4030A second with curved backs, then crept to the wire,
403110
4032
4033Wormed ourselves tinkling through, glanced back, and dropped.
4034The sodden ground was splashed with shallow pools,
4035And tufts of crackling cornstalks, two years old,
4036No man had reaped, and patches of spring grass.
4037Half-seen, as rose and sank the flares, were strewn
4038With the wrecks of our attack: the bandoliers,°
4039Packs, rifles, bayonets, belts, and haversacks,
4040Shell fragments, and the huge whole forms of shells
4041Shot fruitlessly—and everywhere the dead.
4042Only the dead were always present—present
404320
4044
4045As a vile sickly smell of rottenness;
4046The rustling stubble and the early grass,
4047The slimy pools—the dead men stank through all,
4048Pungent and sharp; as bodies loomed before,
4049And as we passed, they stank: then dulled away
4050To that vague fœtor, all encompassing,
4051Infecting earth and air. They lay, all clothed,
4052Each in some new and piteous attitude
4053That we well marked to guide us back: as he,
4054Outside our wire, that lay on his back and crossed
405530
4056
4057His legs Crusader-wise; I smiled at that,°
4058And thought on Elia and his Temple Church.°
4059From him, at quarter left, lay a small corpse,
4060Down in a hollow, huddled as in bed,
4061That one of us put his hand on unawares.
4062Next was a bunch of half a dozen men
4063All blown to bits, an archipelago°
4064Of corrupt fragments, vexing to us three,
4065Who had no light to see by, save the flares.
4066On such a trail, so lit, for ninety yards
406740
4068
4069We crawled on belly and elbows, till we saw
4070Instead of lumpish dead before our eyes,
4071The stakes and crosslines of the German wire.
4072We lay in shelter of the last dead man,
4073Ourselves as dead, and heard their shovels ring
4074Turning the earth, then talk and cough at times.
4075A sentry fired and a machine-gun spat;
4076They shot a flare above us, when it fell
4077And spluttered out in the pools of No Man’s Land,
4078We turned and crawled past the remembered dead:
407950
4080
4081Past him and him, and them and him, until
4082For he lay some way apart, we caught the scent
4083Of the Crusader and slid past his legs,
4084And through the wire and home, and got our rum.
4085God! How I Hate You, You Young Cheerful Men!
4086
4087
4088‘I know that God will never let me die.
4089He is too passionate and intense for that.
4090See how He swings His great suns through the sky,
4091See how He hammers the proud-faced mountains flat;
4092He takes a handful of a million years
4093And flings them at the planets; or He throws
4094His red stars at the moon; then with hot tears
4095He stoops to kiss one little earth-born rose.
4096Don’t nail God down to rules, and think you know!
4097Or God, Who sorrows all a summer’s day
4098Because a blade of grass has died, will come
4099And suck this world up in His lips, and lo!
4100Will spit it out a pebble, powdered grey,
4101Into the whirl of Infinity’s nothingless foam.’
4102This ruined the reputation of all English Atheists for months!
4103God! How I hate you, you young cheerful men,
4104Whose pious poetry blossoms on your graves
4105As soon as you are in them, nurtured up
4106By the salt of your corruption, and the tears
4107Of mothers, local vicars, college deans,
4108And flanked by prefaces and photographs
4109From all your minor poet friends—the fools—
4110Who paint their sentimental elegies°
4111Where sure, no angel treads; and, living, share
4112The dead’s brief immortality.
4113Oh Christ!
411410
4115
4116To think that one could spread the ductile wax°
4117Of his fluid youth to Oxford’s glowing fires
4118And take her seal so ill! Hark how one chants—
4119‘Oh happy to have lived these epic days’—°
4120‘These epic days’! And he’d been to France,°
4121And seen the trenches, glimpsed the huddled dead
4122In the periscope, hung in the rusting wire:°
4123Choked by their sickly fœtor, day and night
4124Blown down his throat: stumbled through ruined hearths,
4125Proved all that muddy brown monotony,
412620
4127
4128Where blood’s the only coloured thing. Perhaps
4129Had seen a man killed, a sentry shot at night,
4130Hunched as he fell, his feet on the firing-step,°
4131His neck against the back slope of the trench,
4132And the rest doubled up between, his head
4133Smashed like an egg-shell, and the warm grey brain
4134Spattered all bloody on the parados:°
4135Had flashed a torch on his face, and known his friend,
4136Shot, breathing hardly, in ten minutes—gone!
4137Yet still God’s in His heaven, all is right
413830
4139
4140In the best possible of worlds. The woe,°
4141Even His scaled eyes must see, is partial, only
4142A seeming woe, we cannot understand.
4143God loves us, God looks down on this our strife
4144And smiles in pity, blows a pipe at times
4145And calls some warriors home. We do not die,
4146God would not let us, He is too ‘intense,’
4147Too ‘passionate,’ a whole day sorrows He
4148Because a grass-blade dies. How rare life is!°
4149On earth, the love and fellowship of men,
415040
4151
4152Men sternly banded: banded for what end?
4153Banded to maim and kill their fellow men—
4154For even Huns are men. In heaven above°
4155A genial umpire, a good judge of sport,
4156Won’t let us hurt each other! Let’s rejoice
4157God keeps us faithful, pens us still in fold.
4158Ah, what a faith is ours (almost, it seems,
4159Large as a mustard-seed)—we trust and trust,°
4160Nothing can shake us! Ah, how good God is
4161To suffer us be born just now, when youth
416250
4163
4164That else would rust, can slake his blade in gore,°
4165Where very God Himself does seem to walk
4166The bloody fields of Flanders He so loves!°
4167
4168Anthem for Doomed Youth
4169
4170What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?°
4171—Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
4172Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
4173Can patter out their hasty orisons.°
4174No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
4175Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—
4176The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;°
4177And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
4178What candles may be held to speed them all?
4179Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes
418010
4181
4182Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
4183The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;°
4184Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
4185And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.°
4186The Sentry
4187
4188We’d found an old Boche dug-out, and he knew,°
4189And gave us hell; for shell on frantic shell
4190Lit full on top, but never quite burst through.
4191Rain, guttering down in waterfalls of slime,
4192Kept slush waist-high and rising hour by hour,
4193And choked the steps too thick with clay to climb.
4194What murk of air remained stank old, and sour
4195With fumes from whizz-bangs, and the smell of men°
4196Who’d lived there years, and left their curse in the den,
4197If not their corpses . . .
4198There we herded from the blast
419910
4200
4201Of whizz-bangs; but one found our door at last,—
4202Buffeting eyes and breath, snuffing the candles,
4203And thud! flump! thud! down the steep steps came thumping
4204And sploshing in the flood, deluging muck,
4205The sentry’s body; then his rifle, handles
4206Of old Boche bombs, and mud in ruck on ruck.
4207We dredged it up, for dead, until he whined,
4208‘O sir—my eyes,—I’m blind,—I’m blind,—I’m blind.’
4209Coaxing, I held a flame against his lids
4210And said if he could see the least blurred light
421120
4212
4213He was not blind; in time they’d get all right.
4214‘I can’t,’ he sobbed. Eyeballs, huge-bulged like squids’,
4215Watch my dreams still,—yet I forgot him there
4216In posting Next for duty, and sending a scout
4217To beg a stretcher somewhere, and flound’ring about
4218To other posts under the shrieking air.
4219Those other wretches, how they bled and spewed,
4220And one who would have drowned himself for good,—°
4221I try not to remember these things now.
4222Let Dread hark back for one word only: how,
422330
4224
4225Half-listening to that sentry’s moans and jumps,
4226And the wild chattering of his shivered teeth,
4227Renewed most horribly whenever crumps
4228Pummelled the roof and slogged the air beneath,—
4229Through the dense din, I say, we heard him shout
4230‘I see your lights!’—But ours had long gone out.
4231Dulce et Decorum Est
4232
4233Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
4234Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
4235Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
4236And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
4237Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
4238But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
4239Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
4240Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.°
4241Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling,
4242Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
424310
4244
4245But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
4246And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
4247Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
4248As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
4249In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
4250He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
4251If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
4252Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
4253And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
4254His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
425520
4256
4257If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
4258Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
4259Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
4260Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
4261My friend, you would not tell with such high zest°
4262To children ardent for some desperate glory,
4263The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
4264Pro patria mori.°
4265Insensibility
4266
42671
4268Happy are men who yet before they are killed°
4269Can let their veins run cold.
4270Whom no compassion fleers°
4271Or makes their feet
4272Sore on the alleys cobbled with their brothers.
4273The front line withers.
4274But they are troops who fade, not flowers,
4275For poets’ tearful fooling:
4276Men, gaps for filling:°
4277Losses, who might have fought
427810
4279
4280Longer; but no one bothers.
42812
4282And some cease feeling
4283Even themselves or for themselves.
4284Dullness best solves
4285The tease and doubt of shelling,
4286And Chance’s strange arithmetic
4287Comes simpler than the reckoning of their shilling.°
4288They keep no check on armies’ decimation.°
42893
4290Happy are these who lose imagination:
4291They have enough to carry with ammunition.
429220
4293
4294Their spirit drags no pack.
4295Their old wounds, save with cold, can not more ache.
4296Having seen all things red,
4297Their eyes are rid
4298Of the hurt of the colour of blood for ever.
4299And terror’s first constriction over,
4300Their hearts remain small-drawn.
4301Their senses in some scorching cautery of battle°
4302Now long since ironed,
4303Can laugh among the dying, unconcerned.
430430
4305
43064
4307Happy the soldier home, with not a notion
4308How somewhere, every dawn, some men attack,
4309And many sighs are drained.
4310Happy the lad whose mind was never trained:
4311His days are worth forgetting more than not.
4312He sings along the march
4313Which we march taciturn, because of dusk,
4314The long, forlorn, relentless trend
4315From larger day to huger night.
43165
4317We wise, who with a thought besmirch
431840
4319
4320Blood over all our soul,
4321How should we see our task
4322But through his blunt and lashless eyes?
4323Alive, he is not vital overmuch;
4324Dying, not mortal overmuch;
4325Nor sad, nor proud,
4326Nor curious at all.
4327He cannot tell
4328Old men’s placidity from his.
43296
4330But cursed are dullards whom no cannon stuns,
433150
4332
4333That they should be as stones.
4334Wretched are they, and mean
4335With paucity that never was simplicity.
4336By choice they made themselves immune
4337To pity and whatever moans in man
4338Before the last sea and the hapless stars;
4339Whatever mourns when many leave these shores;
4340Whatever shares
4341The eternal reciprocity of tears.
4342Greater Love
4343
4344Red lips are not so red
4345As the stained stones kissed by the English dead.
4346Kindness of wooed and wooer
4347Seems shame to their love pure.
4348O Love, your eyes lose lure°
4349When I behold eyes blinded in my stead!
4350Your slender attitude
4351Trembles not exquisite like limbs knife-skewed,
4352Rolling and rolling there
4353Where God seems not to care;
435410
4355
4356Till the fierce love they bear
4357Cramps them in death’s extreme decrepitude.
4358Your voice sings not so soft,—
4359Though even as wind murmuring through raftered loft,—
4360Your dear voice is not dear,
4361Gentle, and evening clear,
4362As theirs whom none now hear,
4363Now earth has stopped their piteous mouths that coughed.
4364Heart, you were never hot
4365Nor large, nor full like hearts made great with shot;
436620
4367
4368And though your hand be pale,
4369Paler are all which trail
4370Your cross through flame and hail:
4371Weep, you may weep, for you may touch them not.°
4372Disabled
4373
4374He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,°
4375And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,
4376Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park
4377Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn,
4378Voices of play and pleasure after day,
4379Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him.
4380* * * * *
4381About this time Town used to swing so gay
4382When glow-lamps budded in the light blue trees,
4383And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim,—
4384In the old times, before he threw away his knees.
438510
4386
4387Now he will never feel again how slim
4388Girls’ waists are, or how warm their subtle hands.
4389All of them touch him like some queer disease.
4390* * * * *
4391There was an artist silly for his face,
4392For it was younger than his youth, last year.
4393Now, he is old; his back will never brace;
4394He’s lost his colour very far from here,
4395Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry,
4396And half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race
4397And leap of purple spurted from his thigh.
439820
4399
4400* * * * *
4401One time he liked a blood-smear down his leg,
4402After the matches, carried shoulder-high.°
4403It was after football, when he’d drunk a peg,°
4404He thought he’d better join.—He wonders why.
4405Someone had said he’d look a god in kilts,
4406That’s why; and maybe, too, to please his Meg,
4407Aye, that was it, to please the giddy jilts°
4408He asked to join. He didn’t have to beg;
4409Smiling they wrote his lie: aged nineteen years.°
4410Germans he scarcely thought of, all their guilt,
441130
4412
4413And Austria’s, did not move him. And no fears
4414Of Fear came yet. He thought of jewelled hilts
4415For daggers in plaid socks; of smart salutes;
4416And care of arms; and leave; and pay arrears;
4417Esprit de corps; and hints for young recruits.°
4418And soon, he was drafted out with drums and cheers.
4419* * * * *
4420Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal.
4421Only a solemn man who brought him fruits
4422Thanked him; and then enquired about his soul.
4423* * * * *
4424Now, he will spend a few sick years in institutes,
442540
4426
4427And do what things the rules consider wise,
4428And take whatever pity they may dole.
4429Tonight he noticed how the women’s eyes
4430Passed from him to the strong men that were whole.
4431How cold and late it is! Why don’t they come
4432And put him into bed? Why don’t they come?°
4433Apologia pro Poemate Meo
4434
4435I, too, saw God through mud,—°
4436The mud that cracked on cheeks when wretches smiled.
4437War brought more glory to their eyes than blood,
4438And gave their laughs more glee than shakes a child.
4439Merry it was to laugh there—
4440Where death becomes absurd and life absurder.
4441For power was on us as we slashed bones bare
4442Not to feel sickness or remorse of murder.
4443I, too, have dropped off Fear—
4444Behind the barrage, dead as my platoon,°
444510
4446
4447And sailed my spirit surging light and clear
4448Past the entanglement where hopes lay strewn;
4449And witnessed exultation—
4450Faces that used to curse me, scowl for scowl,
4451Shine and lift up with passion of oblation,°
4452Seraphic for an hour; though they were foul.
4453I have made fellowships—
4454Untold of happy lovers in old song.
4455For love is not the binding of fair lips
4456With the soft silk of eyes that look and long,°
445720
4458
4459By Joy, whose ribbon slips,—
4460But wound with war’s hard wire whose stakes are strong;
4461Bound with the bandage of the arm that drips;°
4462Knit in the webbing of the rifle-thong.
4463I have perceived much beauty
4464In the hoarse oaths that kept our courage straight;
4465Heard music in the silentness of duty;
4466Found peace where shell-storms spouted reddest spate.
4467Nevertheless, except you share
4468With them in hell the sorrowful dark of hell,
446930
4470
4471Whose world is but the trembling of a flare
4472And heaven but as the highway for a shell,
4473You shall not hear their mirth:
4474You shall not come to think them well content
4475By any jest of mine. These men are worth
4476Your tears. You are not worth their merriment.
4477The Show
4478
4479We have fallen in the dreams the ever-living
4480Breathe on the tarnished mirror of the world,
4481And then smooth out with ivory hands and sigh.
4482W.B. YEATS
4483My soul looked down from a vague height, with Death,
4484As unremembering how I rose or why,
4485And saw a sad land, weak with sweats of dearth,
4486Grey, cratered like the moon with hollow woe,
4487And pitted with great pocks and scabs of plagues.
4488Across its beard, that horror of harsh wire,
4489There moved thin caterpillars, slowly uncoiled.
4490It seemed they pushed themselves to be as plugs
4491Of ditches, where they writhed and shrivelled, killed.
4492By them had slimy paths been trailed and scraped
449310
4494
4495Round myriad warts that might be little hills.
4496From gloom’s last dregs these long-strung creatures crept,
4497And vanished out of dawn down hidden holes.
4498(And smell came up from those foul openings
4499As out of mouths, or deep wounds deepening.)
4500On dithering feet upgathered, more and more,
4501Brown strings, towards strings of grey, with bristling spines,°
4502All migrants from green fields, intent on mire.
4503Those that were grey, of more abundant spawns,
4504Ramped on the rest and ate them and were eaten.°
450520
4506
4507I saw their bitten backs curve, loop, and straighten.
4508I watched those agonies curl, lift, and flatten.
4509Whereat, in terror what that sight might mean,
4510I reeled and shivered earthward like a feather.
4511And Death fell with me, like a deepening moan.
4512And He, picking a manner of worm, which half had hid
4513Its bruises in the earth, but crawled no further,°
4514Showed me its feet, the feet of many men,
4515And the fresh-severed head of it, my head.
4516[I saw his round mouth’s crimson]
4517
4518I saw his round mouth’s crimson deepen as it fell,
4519Like a sun, in his last deep hour;
4520Watched the magnificent recession of farewell,
4521Clouding, half gleam, half glower,
4522And a last splendour burn the heavens of his cheek.
4523And in his eyes
4524The cold stars lighting, very old and bleak,
4525In different skies.
4526A Terre
4527
4528(being the philosophy of many soldiers)
4529Sit on the bed. I’m blind, and three parts shell.
4530Be careful; can’t shake hands now; never shall.
4531Both arms have mutinied against me,—brutes.
4532My fingers fidget like ten idle brats.
4533I tried to peg out soldierly,—no use!°
4534One dies of war like any old disease.
4535This bandage feels like pennies on my eyes.°
4536I have my medals?—Discs to make eyes close.
4537My glorious ribbons?—Ripped from my own back°
4538In scarlet shreds. (That’s for your poetry book.)
453910
4540
4541A short life and a merry one, my buck!
4542We used to say we’d hate to live dead-old,—
4543Yet now . . . I’d willingly be puffy, bald,
4544And patriotic. Buffers catch from boys°
4545At least the jokes hurled at them. I suppose
4546Little I’d ever teach a son, but hitting,
4547Shooting, war, hunting, all the arts of hurting.
4548Well, that’s what I learnt,—that, and making money.
4549Your fifty years ahead seem none too many?
4550Tell me how long I’ve got? God! For one year
455120
4552
4553To help myself to nothing more than air!
4554One Spring! Is one too good to spare, too long?
4555Spring wind would work its own way to my lung,
4556And grow me legs as quick as lilac-shoots.
4557My servant’s lamed, but listen how he shouts!
4558When I’m lugged out, he’ll still be good for that.
4559Here in this mummy-case, you know, I’ve thought
4560How well I might have swept his floors for ever.°
4561I’d ask no nights off when the bustle’s over,
4562Enjoying so the dirt. Who’s prejudiced
456330
4564
4565Against a grimed hand when his own’s quite dust,
4566Less live than specks that in the sun-shafts turn,
4567Less warm than dust that mixes with arms’ tan?
4568I’d love to be a sweep, now, black as Town,
4569Yes, or a muckman. Must I be his load?
4570O Life, Life, let me breathe,—a dug-out rat!
4571Not worse than ours the lives rats lead—
4572Nosing along at night down some safe rut,
4573They find a shell-proof home before they rot.
4574Dead men may envy living mites in cheese,
457540
4576
4577Or good germs even. Microbes have their joys,
4578And subdivide, and never come to death.
4579Certainly flowers have the easiest time on earth.
4580‘I shall be one with nature, herb, and stone,’
4581Shelley would tell me. Shelley would be stunned:°
4582The dullest Tommy hugs that fancy now.
4583‘Pushing up daisies’ is their creed, you know.°
4584To grain, then, go my fat, to buds my sap,
4585For all the usefulness there is in soap.
4586D’you think the Boche will ever stew man-soup?°
458750
4588
4589Some day, no doubt, if . . .
4590Friend, be very sure
4591I shall be better off with plants that share
4592More peaceably the meadow and the shower.
4593Soft rains will touch me,—as they could touch once,
4594And nothing but the sun will make me ware.
4595Your guns may crash around me. I’ll not hear;
4596Or, if I wince, I shall not know I wince.
4597Don’t take my soul’s poor comfort for your jest.
4598Soldiers may grow a soul when turned to fronds,°
4599But here the thing’s best left at home with friends.
460060
4601
4602My soul’s a little grief, grappling your chest,
4603To climb your throat on sobs; easily chased
4604On other sighs and wiped by fresher winds.
4605Carry my crying spirit till it’s weaned
4606To do without what blood remained these wounds.
4607Exposure
4608
4609Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us . . .°
4610Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent . . .
4611Low, drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient . . .°
4612Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous,
4613But nothing happens.
4614Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire,
4615Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles.
4616Northward, incessantly, the flickering gunnery rumbles,
4617Far off, like a dull rumour of some other war.
4618What are we doing here?
461910
4620
4621The poignant misery of dawn begins to grow . . .
4622We only know war lasts, rain soaks, and clouds sag stormy.
4623Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army
4624Attacks once more in ranks on shivering ranks of grey,°
4625But nothing happens.
4626Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence.
4627Less deathly than the air that shudders black with snow,
4628With sidelong flowing flakes that flock, pause, and renew;
4629We watch them wandering up and down the wind’s nonchalance,
4630But nothing happens.
463120
4632
4633Pale flakes with fingering stealth come feeling for our faces—
4634We cringe in holes, back on forgotten dreams, and stare, snow-dazed,
4635Deep into grassier ditches. So we drowse, sun-dozed,
4636Littered with blossoms trickling where the blackbird fusses,
4637—Is it that we are dying?
4638Slowly our ghosts drag home: glimpsing the sunk fires, glozed°
4639With crusted dark-red jewels; crickets jingle there;
4640For hours the innocent mice rejoice: the house is theirs;
4641Shutters and doors, all closed: on us the doors are closed,—
4642We turn back to our dying.
464330
4644
4645Since we believe not otherwise can kind fires burn;
4646Nor ever suns smile true on child, or field, or fruit.
4647For God’s invincible spring our love is made afraid;
4648Therefore, not loath, we lie out here; therefore were born,
4649For love of God seems dying.
4650Tonight, this frost will fasten on this mud and us,
4651Shrivelling many hands, puckering foreheads crisp.
4652The burying-party, picks and shovels in shaking grasp,
4653Pause over half-known faces. All their eyes are ice,
4654But nothing happens.
465540
4656Miners
4657
4658There was a whispering in my hearth,
4659A sigh of the coal,
4660Grown wistful of a former earth
4661It might recall.
4662I listened for a tale of leaves
4663And smothered ferns,
4664Frond -forests, and the low sly lives°
4665Before the fauns.°
4666My fire might show steam-phantoms simmer
4667From Time’s old cauldron,
466810
4669
4670Before the birds made nests in summer,
4671Or men had children.
4672But the coals were murmuring of their mine,
4673And moans down there
4674Of boys that slept wry sleep, and men
4675Writhing for air.
4676And I saw white bones in the cinder-shard,
4677Bones without number.
4678Many the muscled bodies charred,
4679And few remember.
468020
4681
4682I thought of all that worked dark pits
4683Of war, and died
4684Digging the rock where Death reputes
4685Peace lies indeed.
4686Comforted years will sit soft-chaired,
4687In rooms of amber;°
4688The years will stretch their hands, well-cheered
4689By our life’s ember;
4690The centuries will burn rich loads
4691With which we groaned,
469230
4693
4694Whose warmth shall lull their dreaming lids,
4695While songs are crooned;
4696But they will not dream of us poor lads,
4697Left in the ground.
4698The Last Laugh
4699
4700‘Oh! Jesus Christ! I’m hit,’ he said; and died.
4701Whether he vainly cursed or prayed indeed,
4702The Bullets chirped—In vain, vain, vain!
4703Machine-guns chuckled—Tut-tut! Tut-tut!
4704And the Big Gun guffawed.
4705Another sighed—‘O Mother,—Mother,—Dad!’
4706Then smiled at nothing, childlike, being dead.
4707And the lofty Shrapnel-cloud
4708Leisurely gestured,—Fool!
4709And the splinters spat, and tittered.
471010
4711
4712‘My Love!’ one moaned. Love-languid seemed his mood,
4713Till slowly lowered, his whole face kissed the mud.
4714And the Bayonets’ long teeth grinned;
4715Rabbles of Shells hooted and groaned;
4716And the Gas hissed.
4717Strange Meeting
4718
4719It seemed that out of battle I escaped
4720Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
4721Through granites which titanic wars had groined.
4722Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,°
4723Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
4724Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
4725With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
4726Lifting distressful hands, as if to bless.
4727And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall,—
4728By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.
472910
4730
4731With a thousand pains that vision’s face was grained;
4732Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
4733And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.°
4734‘Strange friend,’ I said, ‘here is no cause to mourn.’
4735‘None,’ said that other, ‘save the undone years,
4736The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
4737Was my life also; I went hunting wild
4738After the wildest beauty in the world,
4739Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
4740But mocks the steady running of the hour,
474120
4742
4743And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
4744For by my glee might many men have laughed,
4745And of my weeping something had been left,
4746Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
4747The pity of war, the pity war distilled.°
4748Now men will go content with what we spoiled,
4749Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
4750They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress.
4751None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
4752Courage was mine, and I had mystery,
475330
4754
4755Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery:
4756To miss the march of this retreating world
4757Into vain citadels that are not walled.
4758Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels,
4759I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
4760Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
4761I would have poured my spirit without stint
4762But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
4763Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.
4764‘I am the enemy you killed, my friend.°
476540
4766
4767I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned
4768Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
4769I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
4770Let us sleep now . . .’
4771Futility
4772
4773Move him into the sun—
4774Gently its touch awoke him once,
4775At home, whispering of fields half-sown.
4776Always it woke him, even in France,
4777Until this morning and this snow.
4778If anything might rouse him now
4779The kind old sun will know.
4780Think how it wakes the seeds—
4781Woke once the clays of a cold star.°
4782Are limbs, so dear achieved, are sides
478310
4784
4785Full-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir?
4786Was it for this the clay grew tall?°
4787—O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
4788To break earth’s sleep at all?
4789The Send-Off
4790
4791Down the close darkening lanes they sang their way
4792To the siding-shed,
4793And lined the train with faces grimly gay.
4794Their breasts were stuck all white with wreath and spray
4795As men’s are, dead.
4796Dull porters watched them, and a casual tramp
4797Stood staring hard,
4798Sorry to miss them from the upland camp.
4799Then, unmoved, signals nodded, and a lamp
4800Winked to the guard.
480110
4802
4803So secretly, like wrongs hushed-up, they went.
4804They were not ours:
4805We never heard to which front these were sent;
4806Nor there if they yet mock what women meant
4807Who gave them flowers.
4808Shall they return to beating of great bells
4809In wild train-loads?
4810A few, a few, too few for drums and yells,
4811May creep back, silent, to village wells,
4812Up half-known roads.
481320
4814Mental Cases
4815
4816Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?
4817Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows,
4818Drooping tongues from jaws that slob their relish,
4819Baring teeth that leer like skulls’ teeth wicked?
4820Stroke on stroke of pain,—but what slow panic,
4821Gouged these chasms round their fretted sockets?
4822Ever from their hair and through their hands’ palms
4823Misery swelters. Surely we have perished
4824Sleeping, and walk hell; but who these hellish?
4825—These are men whose minds the Dead have ravished.
482610
4827
4828Memory fingers in their hair of murders,
4829Multitudinous murders they once witnessed.
4830Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander,
4831Treading blood from lungs that had loved laughter.°
4832Always they must see these things and hear them,
4833Batter of guns and shatter of flying muscles,
4834Carnage incomparable, and human squander
4835Rucked too thick for these men’s extrication.°
4836Therefore still their eyeballs shrink tormented
4837Back into their brains, because on their sense
483820
4839
4840Sunlight seems a blood-smear; night comes blood-black;
4841Dawn breaks open like a wound that bleeds afresh.
4842—Thus their heads wear this hilarious, hideous,
4843Awful falseness of set-smiling corpses.
4844—Thus their hands are plucking at each other;
4845Picking at the rope-knouts of their scourging;
4846Snatching after us who smote them, brother,
4847Pawing us who dealt them war and madness.
4848The Parable of the Old Man and the Young
4849
4850So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
4851And took the fire with him, and a knife.
4852And as they sojourned both of them together,
4853Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
4854Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
4855But where the lamb, for this burnt-offering?
4856Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
4857And builded parapets and trenches there°
4858And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.
4859When lo! an Angel called him out of heaven,
486010
4861
4862Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
4863Neither do anything to him, thy son.
4864Behold! Caught in a thicket by its horns,
4865A Ram. Offer the Ram of Pride instead.
4866But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
4867And half the seed of Europe, one by one.
4868Spring Offensive
4869
4870Halted against the shade of a last hill
4871They fed, and eased of pack-loads, were at ease;
4872And leaning on the nearest chest or knees
4873Carelessly slept.
4874But many there stood still
4875To face the stark blank sky beyond the ridge,
4876Knowing their feet had come to the end of the world.
4877Marvelling they stood, and watched the long grass swirled
4878By the May breeze, murmurous with wasp and midge;
4879And though the summer oozed into their veins
4880Like an injected drug for their bodies’ pains,
488110
4882
4883Sharp on their souls hung the imminent ridge of grass,
4884Fearfully flashed the sky’s mysterious glass.
4885Hour after hour they ponder the warm field
4886And the far valley behind, where buttercups
4887Had blessed with gold their slow boots coming up;
4888When even the little brambles would not yield
4889But clutched and clung to them like sorrowing arms.
4890They breathe like trees unstirred.
4891Till like a cold gust thrills the little word
4892At which each body and its soul begird°
489320
4894
4895And tighten them for battle. No alarms
4896Of bugles, no high flags, no clamorous haste,—
4897Only a lift and flare of eyes that faced
4898The sun, like a friend with whom their love is done.
4899O larger shone that smile against the sun,—
4900Mightier than his whose bounty these have spurned.
4901So, soon they topped the hill, and raced together
4902Over an open stretch of herb and heather
4903Exposed. And instantly the whole sky burned
4904With fury against them; earth set sudden cups
490530
4906
4907In thousands for their blood; and the green slope
4908Chasmed and deepened sheer to infinite space.
4909Of them who running on that last high place
4910Breasted the surf of bullets, or went up
4911On the hot blast and fury of hell’s upsurge,
4912Or plunged and fell away past this world’s verge,
4913Some say God caught them even before they fell.
4914But what say such as from existence’ brink
4915Ventured but drave too swift to sink,
4916The few who rushed in the body to enter hell,
491740
4918
4919And there out-fiending all its fiends and flames
4920With superhuman inhumanities,
4921Long-famous glories, immemorial shames—
4922And crawling slowly back, have by degrees
4923Regained cool peaceful air in wonder—
4924Why speak not they of comrades that went under?
4925Smile, Smile, Smile
4926
4927Head to limp head, the sunk-eyed wounded scanned
4928Yesterday’s Mail; the casualties (typed small)
4929And (large) Vast Booty from our Latest Haul.°
4930Also, they read of Cheap Homes, not yet planned,
4931‘For’, said the paper, ‘when this war is done
4932The men’s first instincts will be making homes.
4933Meanwhile their foremost need is aerodromes,
4934It being certain war has but begun.
4935Peace would do wrong to our undying dead,—
4936The sons we offered might regret they died
493710
4938
4939If we got nothing lasting in their stead.
4940We must be solidly indemnified.°
4941Though all be worthy Victory which all bought,
4942We rulers sitting in this ancient spot
4943Would wrong our very selves if we forgot
4944The greatest glory will be theirs who fought,
4945Who kept this nation in integrity.’
4946Nation?—The half-limbed readers did not chafe
4947But smiled at one another curiously
4948Like secret men who know their secret safe.
494920
4950
4951(This is the thing they know and never speak,
4952That England one by one had fled to France,
4953Not many elsewhere now, save under France.)
4954Pictures of these broad smiles appear each week,
4955And people in whose voice real feeling rings
4956Say: How they smile! They’re happy now, poor things.
4957
4958
49593
4960Præmaturi
4961
4962When men are old, and their friends die,
4963They are not so sad,
4964Because their love is running slow,
4965And cannot spring from the wound with so sharp a pain;
4966And they are happy with many memories,
4967And only a little while to be alone.
4968But we were young, and our friends are dead
4969Suddenly, and our quick love is torn in two;
4970So our memories are only hopes that came to nothing.
4971We are left alone like old men; we should be dead
497210
4973
4974—But there are years and years in which we shall still be young.
4975The Falling Leaves
4976
4977November 1915
4978To-day, as I rode by,
4979I saw the brown leaves dropping from their tree
4980In a still afternoon,
4981When no wind whirled them whistling to the sky,
4982But thickly, silently,
4983They fell, like snowflakes wiping out the noon;
4984And wandered slowly thence
4985For thinking of a gallant multitude
4986Which now all withering lay,
4987Slain by no wind of age or pestilence,
498810
4989
4990But in their beauty strewed
4991Like snowflakes falling on the Flemish clay.°
4992Afterwards
4993
4994Oh, my beloved, shall you and I
4995Ever be young again, be young again?
4996The people that were resigned said to me
4997—Peace will come and you will lie
4998Under the larches up in Sheer,°
4999Sleeping,
5000And eating strawberries and cream and cakes—
5001O cakes, O cakes, O cakes, from Fuller’s!°
5002And quite forgetting there’s a train to town,
5003Plotting in an afternoon the new curves for the world.
500410
5005
5006And peace came. And lying in Sheer
5007I look round at the corpses of the larches
5008Whom they slew to make pit-props°
5009For mining the coal for the great armies.
5010And think, a pit-prop cannot move in the wind,
5011Nor have red manes hanging in spring from its branches,
5012And sap making the warm air sweet.
5013Though you planted it out on the hill again it would be dead.
5014And if these years have made you into a pit-prop,
5015To carry the twisting galleries of the world’s reconstruction
501620
5017
5018(Where you may thank God, I suppose
5019That they set you the sole stay of a nasty corner)
5020What use is it to you? What use
5021To have your body lying here
5022In Sheer, underneath the larches?
5023
5024
5025August 1914
5026
5027The sun rose over the sweep of the hill
5028All bare for the gathered hay,
5029And a blackbird sang by the window-sill,
5030And a girl knelt down to pray:
5031‘Whom Thou hast kept through the night, O Lord,
5032Keep Thou safe through the day.’
5033The sun rose over the shell-swept height,
5034The guns are over the way,
5035And a soldier turned from the toil of the night
5036To the toil of another day,
503710
5038
5039And a bullet sang by the parapet°
5040To drive in the new-turned clay.
5041The sun sank slow by the sweep of the hill,
5042They had carried all the hay,
5043And a blackbird sang by the window-sill,
5044And a girl knelt down to pray:
5045‘Keep Thou safe through the night, O Lord,
5046Whom Thou hast kept through the day.’
5047The sun sank slow by the shell-swept height,
5048The guns had prepared a way,
504920
5050
5051And a soldier turned to sleep that night
5052Who would not wake for the day,
5053And a blackbird flew from the window-sill,
5054When a girl knelt down to pray.
5055March 1915
5056Rouen
5057
5058April 26–May 25, 1915
5059Early morning over Rouen, hopeful, high, courageous morning,
5060And the laughter of adventure and the steepness of the stair,
5061And the dawn across the river, and the wind across the bridges,
5062And the empty littered station and the tired people there.
5063Can you recall those mornings and the hurry of awakening,
5064And the long-forgotten wonder if we should miss the way,
5065And the unfamiliar faces, and the coming of provisions,
5066And the freshness and the glory of the labour of the day?
5067Hot noontide over Rouen, and the sun upon the city,
5068Sun and dust unceasing, and the glare of cloudless skies,
506910
5070
5071And the voices of the Indians and the endless stream of soldiers,
5072And the clicking of the tatties, and the buzzing of the flies.°
5073Can you recall those noontides and the reek of steam and coffee,
5074Heavy-laden noontides with the evening’s peace to win,
5075And the little piles of woodbines, and the sticky soda bottles,°
5076And the crushes in the ‘Parlour’, and the letters coming in?
5077Quiet night-time over Rouen, and the station full of soldiers,
5078All the youth and pride of England from the ends of all the earth;
5079And the rifles piled together, and the creaking of the sword-belts,
5080And the faces bent above them, and the gay, heart-breaking mirth.
508120
5082
5083Can I forget the passage from the cool white-bedded Aid Post
5084Past the long sun-blistered coaches of the khaki Red Cross train°
5085To the truck train full of wounded, and the weariness and laughter,
5086And ‘Good-bye, and thank you, Sister’, and the empty yards again?
5087Can you recall the parcels that we made them for the railroad,
5088Crammed and bulging parcels held together by their string,
5089And the voices of the sergeants who called the Drafts together,
5090And the agony and splendour when they stood to save the King?
5091Can you forget their passing, the cheering and the waving,
5092The little group of people at the doorway of the shed,
509330
5094
5095The sudden awful silence when the last train swung to darkness,
5096And the lonely desolation, and the mocking stars o’erhead?
5097Can you recall the midnights, and the footsteps of night watchers,
5098Men who came from darkness and went back to dark again,
5099And the shadows on the rail-lines and the all-inglorious labour,
5100And the promise of the daylight firing blue the window-pane?
5101Can you recall the passing through the kitchen door to morning,
5102Morning very still and solemn breaking slowly on the town,
5103And the early coastways engines that had met the ships at daybreak,
5104And the Drafts just out from England, and the day shift coming down?
510540
5106
5107Can you forget returning slowly, stumbling on the cobbles,
5108And the white-decked Red Cross barges dropping seawards for the tide,
5109And the search for English papers, and the blessed cool of water,
5110And the peace of half-closed shutters that shut out the world outside?
5111Can I forget the evenings and the sunsets on the island,
5112And the tall black ships at anchor far below our balcony,
5113And the distant call of bugles, and the white wine in the glasses,
5114And the long line of the street lamps, stretching Eastwards to the sea?
5115. . . When the world slips slow to darkness, when the office fire burns lower,
5116My heart goes out to Rouen, Rouen all the world away;
511750
5118
5119When other men remember I remember our Adventure
5120And the trains that go from Rouen at the ending of the day.
5121November 1915
5122Lamplight
5123
5124We planned to shake the world together, you and I
5125Being young, and very wise;
5126Now in the light of the green shaded lamp
5127Almost I see your eyes
5128Light with the old gay laughter; you and I
5129Dreamed greatly of an Empire in those days,
5130Setting our feet upon laborious ways,
5131And all you asked of fame
5132Was crossed swords in the Army List,
5133My Dear, against your name.°
513410
5135
5136We planned a great Empire together, you and I,
5137Bound only by the sea;
5138Now in the quiet of a chill Winter’s night
5139Your voice comes hushed to me
5140Full of forgotten memories: you and I
5141Dreamed great dreams of our future in those days,
5142Setting our feet on undiscovered ways,
5143And all I asked of fame
5144A scarlet cross on my breast, my Dear,°
5145For the swords by your name.
514620
5147
5148We shall never shake the world together, you and I,
5149For you gave your life away;
5150And I think my heart was broken by the war,
5151Since on a summer day
5152You took the road we never spoke of: you and I
5153Dreamed greatly of an Empire in those days;
5154You set your feet upon the Western ways°
5155And have no need of fame—
5156There’s a scarlet cross on my breast, my Dear,
5157And a torn cross with your name.
515830
5159
5160December 1916
5161‘After the War’
5162
5163After the War perhaps I’ll sit again
5164Out on the terrace where I sat with you,
5165And see the changeless sky and hills beat blue
5166And live an afternoon of summer through.
5167I shall remember then, and sad at heart
5168For the lost day of happiness we knew,
5169Wish only that some other man were you
5170And spoke my name as once you used to do.
5171February 1917
5172The Armistice
5173
5174In an Office, in Paris
5175The news came through over the telephone:
5176All the terms had been signed: the War was won:
5177And all the fighting and the agony,
5178And all the labour of the years were done.
5179One girl clicked sudden at her typewriter
5180And whispered, ‘Jerry’s safe’, and sat and stared:
5181One said, ‘It’s over, over, it’s the end:
5182The War is over: ended’: and a third,
5183‘I can’t remember life without the war’.
5184And one came in and said, ‘Look here, they say
518510
5186
5187We can all go at five to celebrate,
5188As long as two stay on, just for to-day’.
5189It was quite quiet in the big empty room
5190Among the typewriters and little piles
5191Of index cards: one said, ‘We’d better just
5192Finish the day’s reports and do the files’.
5193And said, ‘It’s awf’lly like Recessional,
5194Now when the tumult has all died away’.°
5195The other said, ‘Thank God we saw it through;
5196I wonder what they’ll do at home to-day’.
519720
5198
5199And said, ‘You know it will be quiet to-night
5200Up at the Front: first time in all these years,
5201And no one will be killed there any more’,
5202And stopped, to hide her tears.
5203She said, ‘I’ve told you; he was killed in June’.
5204The other said, ‘My dear, I know; I know . . .
5205It’s over for me too . . . My Man was killed,
5206Wounded . . . and died . . . at Ypres . . . three years ago . . .°
5207And he’s my Man, and I want him,’ she said,
5208And knew that peace could not give back her Dead.
520930
5210For a Girl
5211
5212Paris, November 11 1918
5213Go cheering down the boulevards
5214And shout and wave your flags,
5215Go dancing down the boulevards
5216In all your gladdest rags:
5217And raise your cheers and wave your flags
5218And kiss the passer-by,
5219But let me break my heart in peace
5220For all the best men die.
5221It was ‘When the War is over
5222Our dreams will all come true,
522310
5224
5225When the War is over
5226I’ll come back to you’;
5227And the War is over, over,
5228And they never can come true.
5229Go cheering down the boulevards
5230In all your brave array,
5231Go singing down the boulevards
5232To celebrate the day:
5233But for God’s sake let me stay at home
5234And break my heart and cry,
523520
5236
5237I’ve loved and worked, and I’ll be glad,
5238But all the best men die.
5239It was ‘When the War is over
5240Our dreams will all come true,
5241When the War is over
5242I’ll come back to you’;
5243And the War is over, over,
5244And they never can come true.
5245Perfect Epilogue
5246
5247Armistice Day 1933
5248It’s when the leaves are fallen I think of you,
5249And the long boulevards where the ghosts walk now,
5250And Paris is dark again save for one great star
5251That’s caught and held in the dark arms of a bough
5252And wonder, among them are two a girl and boy
5253Silent, because their love was greater than song,
5254Who whisper ‘farewell’ and whisper ‘if it’s for ever’;
5255And did not know, poor ghosts, for ever could be so long.
5256It’s when the leaves are fallen I think of you,
5257And if you’re lonely too, who went with the great host;°
525810
5259
5260And know that Time’s no mender of hearts but only
5261Still the divider of Light and Darkness, Ghost.
5262
5263
5264
5265All the hills and vales along
5266Earth is bursting into song,
5267And the singers are the chaps
5268Who are going to die perhaps.
5269O sing, marching men,
5270Till the valleys ring again,
5271Give your gladness to earth’s keeping,
5272So be glad, when you are sleeping.
5273Cast away regret and rue,
5274Think what you are marching to.
527510
5276
5277Little live, great pass.
5278Jesus Christ and Barabbas°
5279Were found the same day.
5280This died, that went his way.
5281So sing with joyful breath,
5282For why, you are going to death.
5283Teeming earth will surely store
5284All the gladness that you pour.
5285Earth that never doubts nor fears,
5286Earth that knows of death, not tears,
528720
5288
5289Earth that bore with joyful ease
5290Hemlock for Socrates,°
5291Earth that blossomed and was glad
5292’Neath the cross that Christ had,
5293Shall rejoice and blossom too
5294When the bullet reaches you.
5295Wherefore, men marching,
5296On the road to death, sing!
5297Pour your gladness on earth’s head,
5298So be merry, so be dead.
529930
5300
5301From the hills and valleys earth
5302Shouts back the sound of mirth,
5303Tramp of feet and lilt of song
5304Ringing all the road along.
5305All the music of their going,
5306Ringing swinging glad song-throwing,
5307Earth will echo still, when foot
5308Lies numb and voice mute.
5309On, marching men, on
5310To the gates of death with song.
531140
5312
5313Sow your gladness for earth’s reaping,
5314So you may be glad, though sleeping.
5315Strew your gladness on earth’s bed,
5316So be merry, so be dead.
5317To Germany
5318
5319You are blind like us. Your hurt no man designed,
5320And no man claimed the conquest of your land.
5321But gropers both through fields of thought confined
5322We stumble and we do not understand.
5323You only saw your future bigly planned,
5324And we, the tapering paths of our own mind,
5325And in each other’s dearest ways we stand,
5326And hiss and hate. And the blind fight the blind.
5327When it is peace, then we may view again
5328With new-won eyes each other’s truer form
532910
5330
5331And wonder. Grown more loving-kind and warm
5332We’ll grasp firm hands and laugh at the old pain,
5333When it is peace. But until peace, the storm
5334The darkness and the thunder and the rain.
5335[A hundred thousand million mites we go]
5336
5337A hundred thousand million mites we go
5338Wheeling and tacking o’er the eternal plain,
5339Some black with death—and some are white with woe.
5340Who sent us forth? Who takes us home again?
5341And there is sound of hymns of praise—to whom?
5342And curses—on whom curses?—snap the air.
5343And there is hope goes hand in hand with gloom,
5344And blood and indignation and despair.
5345And there is murmuring of the multitude
5346And blindness and great blindness, until some
534710
5348
5349Step forth and challenge blind Vicissitude°
5350Who tramples on them: so that fewer come.
5351And nations, ankle-deep in love or hate,
5352Throw darts or kisses all the unwitting hour
5353Beside the ominous unseen tide of fate;
5354And there is emptiness and drink and power.
5355And some are mounted on swift steeds of thought
5356And some drag sluggish feet of stable toil.
5357Yet all, as though they furiously sought,
5358Twist turn and tussle, close and cling and coil.
535920
5360
5361A hundred thousand million mites we sway
5362Writhing and tossing on the eternal plain,
5363Some black with death—but most are bright with Day!
5364Who sent us forth? Who brings us home again?
5365September 1914
5366Two Sonnets
5367
5368I
5369Saints have adored the lofty soul of you.
5370Poets have whitened at your high renown.
5371We stand among the many millions who
5372Do hourly wait to pass your pathway down.
5373You, so familiar, once were strange: we tried
5374To live as of your presence unaware.
5375But now in every road on every side
5376We see your straight and steadfast signpost there.
5377I think it like that signpost in my land,
5378Hoary and tall, which pointed me to go
537910
5380
5381Upward, into the hills, on the right hand,
5382Where the mists swim and the winds shriek and blow,
5383A homeless land and friendless, but a land
5384I did not know and that I wished to know.
5385II
5386Such, such is Death: no triumph: no defeat:
5387Only an empty pail, a slate rubbed clean,
5388A merciful putting away of what has been.
5389And this we know: Death is not Life effete,°
5390Life crushed, the broken pail. We who have seen
5391So marvellous things know well the end not yet.
5392Victor and vanquished are a-one in death:
5393Coward and brave: friend, foe. Ghosts do not say
5394‘Come, what was your record when you drew breath?’
5395But a big blot has hid each yesterday
539610
5397
5398So poor, so manifestly incomplete.
5399And your bright Promise, withered long and sped,
5400Is touched, stirs, rises, opens and grows sweet
5401And blossoms and is you, when you are dead.
540212 June 1915
5403[When you see millions of the mouthless dead]
5404
5405When you see millions of the mouthless dead
5406Across your dreams in pale battalions go,
5407Say not soft things as other men have said,
5408That you’ll remember. For you need not so.°
5409Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know
5410It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?
5411Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
5412Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.
5413Say only this, ‘They are dead.’ Then add thereto,
5414‘Yet many a better one has died before.’°
541510
5416
5417Then, scanning all the o’ercrowded mass, should you
5418Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,
5419It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.°
5420Great death has made all his for evermore.
5421
5422
5423It’s a Queer Time
5424
5425It’s hard to know if you’re alive or dead
5426When steel and fire go roaring through your head.
5427One moment you’ll be crouching at your gun
5428Traversing, mowing heaps down half in fun:
5429The next, you choke and clutch at your right breast—
5430No time to think—leave all—and off you go . . .
5431To Treasure Island where the Spice winds blow,°
5432To lovely groves of mango, quince and lime—
5433Breathe no goodbye, but ho, for the Red West!°
5434It’s a queer time.
543510
5436
5437You’re charging madly at them yelling ‘Fag!’°
5438When somehow something gives and your feet drag.
5439You fall and strike your head; yet feel no pain
5440And find . . . you’re digging tunnels through the hay
5441In the Big Barn, ’cause it’s a rainy day.
5442Oh springy hay, and lovely beams to climb!
5443You’re back in the old sailor suit again.°
5444It’s a queer time.
5445Or you’ll be dozing safe in your dug-out—
5446A great roar—the trench shakes and falls about—
544720
5448
5449You’re struggling, gasping, struggling, then . . . hullo!
5450Elsie comes tripping gaily down the trench,
5451Hanky to nose—that lyddite makes a stench—°
5452Getting her pinafore all over grime.
5453Funny! because she died ten years ago!
5454It’s a queer time.
5455The trouble is, things happen much too quick;
5456Up jump the Bosches, rifles thump and click,°
5457You stagger, and the whole scene fades away:
5458Even good Christians don’t like passing straight
545930
5460
5461From Tipperary or their Hymn of Hate°
5462To Alleluiah-chanting, and the chime
5463Of golden harps . . . and . . . I’m not well to-day . . .
5464It’s a queer time.
5465A Dead Boche
5466
5467To you who’d read my songs of War
5468And only hear of blood and fame,
5469I’ll say (you’ve heard it said before)
5470‘War’s Hell!’ and if you doubt the same,°
5471To-day I found in Mametz Wood°
5472A certain cure for lust of blood:
5473Where, propped against a shattered trunk,
5474In a great mess of things unclean,
5475Sat a dead Boche; he scowled and stunk
5476With clothes and face a sodden green,
547710
5478
5479Big-bellied, spectacled, crop-haired,
5480Dribbling black blood from nose and beard.
5481Corporal Stare
5482
5483Back from the Line one night in June
5484I gave a dinner at Béthune:°
5485Seven courses, the most gorgeous meal
5486Money could buy or batman steal.°
5487Five hungry lads welcomed the fish
5488With shouts that nearly cracked the dish;
5489Asparagus came with tender tops,
5490Strawberries in cream, and mutton chops.
5491Said Jenkins, as my hand he shook,
5492‘They’ll put this in the history book.’
549310
5494
5495We bawled Church anthems in choro°
5496Of Bethlehem and Hermon snow,°
5497And drinking songs, a mighty sound
5498To help the good red Pommard round.°
5499Stories and laughter interspersed,
5500We drowned a long La Bassée thirst—°
5501Trenches in June make throats damned dry.
5502Then through the window suddenly,
5503Badge, stripes and medals all complete,
5504We saw him swagger up the street,
550520
5506
5507Just like a live man—Corporal Stare!
5508Stare! Killed last month at Festubert,°
5509Caught on patrol near the Boche wire,
5510Torn horribly by machine-gun fire!
5511He paused, saluted smartly, grinned,
5512Then passed away like a puff of wind,
5513Leaving us blank astonishment.
5514The song broke, up we started, leant
5515Out of the window—nothing there,
5516Not the least shadow of Corporal Stare,
551730
5518
5519Only a quiver of smoke that showed
5520A fag-end dropped on the silent road.
5521A Child’s Nightmare
5522
5523Through long nursery nights he stood
5524By my bed unwearying,
5525Loomed gigantic, formless, queer,
5526Purring in my haunted ear
5527That same hideous nightmare thing,
5528Talking, as he lapped my blood,
5529In a voice cruel and flat,
5530Saying for ever, ‘Cat! . . . Cat! . . . Cat! . . .’
5531That one word was all he said,
5532That one word through all my sleep,
553310
5534
5535In monotonous mock despair.
5536Nonsense may be light as air,
5537But there’s Nonsense that can keep
5538Horror bristling round the head,
5539When a voice cruel and flat
5540Says for ever, ‘Cat! . . . Cat! . . . Cat! . . .’
5541He had faded, he was gone
5542Years ago with Nursery Land,
5543When he leapt on me again
5544From the clank of a night train,
554520
5546
5547Overpowered me foot and hand,
5548Lapped my blood, while on and on
5549The old voice cruel and flat
5550Purred for ever, ‘Cat! . . . Cat! . . . Cat! . . .’
5551Morphia drowsed, again I lay°
5552In a crater by High Wood:°
5553He was there with straddling legs,
5554Staring eyes as big as eggs,
5555Purring as he lapped my blood,
5556His black bulk darkening the day,
555730
5558
5559With a voice cruel and flat,
5560‘Cat! . . . Cat! . . . Cat! . . .’ he said, ‘Cat! . . . Cat! . . .’
5561When I’m shot through heart and head,
5562And there’s no choice but to die,
5563The last word I’ll hear, no doubt,
5564Won’t be ‘Charge!’ or ‘Bomb them out!’
5565Nor the stretcher-bearer’s cry,
5566‘Let that body be, he’s dead!’
5567But a voice cruel and flat
556840
5569
5570Saying for ever, ‘Cat! . . . Cat! . . . Cat!’
5571Two Fusiliers
5572
5573And have we done with War at last?
5574Well, we’ve been lucky devils both,
5575And there’s no need of pledge or oath
5576To bind our lovely friendship fast, By firmer stuff
5577Close bound enough.
5578By wire and wood and stake we’re bound,
5579By Fricourt and by Festubert,°
5580By whipping rain, by the sun’s glare,
5581By all the misery and loud sound,
558210
5583
5584By a Spring day, By Picard clay.°
5585Show me the two so closely bound
5586As we, by the wet bond of blood,
5587By friendship blossoming from mud,
5588By Death: we faced him, and we found
5589Beauty in Death,
5590In dead men, breath.
5591Sergeant-Major Money
5592
5593(1917)
5594It wasn’t our battalion, but we lay alongside it,
5595So the story is as true as the telling is frank.
5596They hadn’t one Line-officer left, after Arras,°
5597Except a batty major and the Colonel, who drank.
5598‘B’ Company Commander was fresh from the Depôt,
5599An expert on gas drill, otherwise a dud;
5600So Sergeant-Major Money carried on, as instructed,
5601And that’s where the swaddies began to sweat blood.°
5602His Old Army humour was so well-spiced and hearty°
5603That one poor sod shot himself, and one lost his wits;
560410
5605
5606But discipline’s maintained, and back in rest-billets°
5607The Colonel congratulates ‘B’ Company on their kits.
5608The subalterns went easy, as was only natural
5609With a terror like Money driving the machine,
5610Till finally two Welshmen, butties from the Rhondda,°
5611Bayoneted their bugbear in a field-canteen.
5612Well, we couldn’t blame the officers, they relied on Money;
5613We couldn’t blame the pitboys, their courage was grand;
5614Or, least of all, blame Money, an old stiff surviving
5615In a New (bloody) Army he couldn’t understand.°
561620
5617Recalling War
5618
5619Entrance and exit wounds are silvered clean,
5620The track aches only when the rain reminds.
5621The one-legged man forgets his leg of wood,
5622The one-armed man his jointed wooden arm.
5623The blinded man sees with his ears and hands
5624As much or more than once with both his eyes.
5625Their war was fought these twenty years ago
5626And now assumes the nature-look of time,
5627As when the morning traveller turns and views
5628His wild night-stumbling carved into a hill.
562910
5630
5631What, then, was war? No mere discord of flags
5632But an infection of the common sky
5633That sagged ominously upon the earth
5634Even when the season was the airiest May.
5635Down pressed the sky, and we, oppressed, thrust out
5636Boastful tongue, clenched fist and valiant yard.
5637Natural infirmities were out of mode,
5638For Death was young again: patron alone
5639Of healthy dying, premature fate-spasm.
5640Fear made fine bed-fellows. Sick with delight
564120
5642
5643At life’s discovered transitoriness,
5644Our youth became all-flesh and waived the mind.
5645Never was such antiqueness of romance,
5646Such tasty honey oozing from the heart.
5647And old importances came swimming back—
5648Wine, meat, log-fires, a roof over the head,
5649A weapon at the thigh, surgeons at call.
5650Even there was a use again for God—
5651A word of rage in lack of meat, wine, fire,
5652In ache of wounds beyond all surgeoning.
565330
5654
5655War was return of earth to ugly earth,
5656War was foundering of sublimities,
5657Extinction of each happy art and faith
5658By which the world had still kept head in air,
5659Protesting logic or protesting love,
5660Until the unendurable moment struck—
5661The inward scream, the duty to run mad.
5662And we recall the merry ways of guns—
5663Nibbling the walls of factory and church
5664Like a child, piecrust; felling groves of trees
566540
5666
5667Like a child, dandelions with a switch.
5668Machine-guns rattle toy-like from a hill,
5669Down in a row the brave tin-soldiers fall:
5670A sight to be recalled in elder days
5671When learnedly the future we devote
5672To yet more boastful visions of despair.
5673
5674
5675[The march from training camp to the embarcation port, from Part 1]
5676The rain increases with the light and the weight increases
5677with the rain. In all that long column in brand-new overseas
5678boots weeping blisters stick to the hard wool of grey government
5679socks.
5680I’m a bleedin’ cripple already Corporal, confides a limping
5681child.
5682Kipt’ that step there.°
5683Keep that proper distance.
5684Keept’ y’r siction o’four—can’t fall out me little darlin’.°
5685Corporal Quilter subsides, he too retreats within himself,
568610
5687
5688he has his private thoughts also.
5689It’s a proper massacre of the innocents in a manner of
5690speaking, no so-called seven ages o’ man only this bastard
5691military age.°
5692Keep that step there.
5693Keep that section distance.
5694Hand us thet gas-pipe young Saunders—let’s see you shape
5695—you too, little Benjamin—hang him about like a goddam
5696Chris’us tree—use his ample shoulders for an armoury-rack
5697—it is his part to succour the lambs of the flock.°
569820
5699
5700With some slackening of the rain the band had wiped
5701their instruments. Broken catches on the wind-gust came
5702shrilly back:
5703Of Hector and Lysander and such great names as these°
5704—the march proper to them.°
5705[A nocturnal march, from Part 3]
5706The repeated passing back of aidful messages assumes a cadency.
5707Mind the hole
5708mind the hole
5709mind the hole to left
5710hole right
5711step over
5712keep left, left.
5713One grovelling, precipitated, with his gear tangled, struggles
5714to feet again:
571510
5716
5717Left be buggered.
5718Sorry mate—you all right china?—lift us yer rifle—an’°
5719don’t take it so Honey—but rather, mind
5720the wire here°
5721mind the wire
5722mind the wire
5723mind the wire.
5724Extricate with some care that taut strand—it may well be
5725you’ll sweat on its unbrokenness.°
5726[What the sentry hears at night, from Part 3]
5727You can hear the silence of it:
5728You can hear the rat of no-man’s-land°
5729rut-out intricacies,
5730weasel-out his patient workings,
5731scrut, scrut, sscrut,
5732harrow-out earthly, trowel his cunning paw;
5733redeem the time of our uncharity, to sap his own amphibious
5734paradise.
5735You can hear his carrying-parties rustle our corruptions
5736through the night-weeds—contest the choicest morsels in his
573710
5738
5739tiny conduits, bead-eyed feast on us; by a rule of his nature,
5740at night-feast on the broken of us.
5741Those broad-pinioned;
5742blue-burnished, or brinded-back;
5743whose proud eyes watched
5744the broken emblems
5745droop and drag dust,
5746suffer with us this metamorphosis.
5747These too have shed their fine feathers; these too have
5748slimed their dark-bright coats, these too have condescended
574920
5750
5751to dig in.
5752The white-tailed eagle at the battle ebb,°
5753where the sea wars against the river°
5754the speckled kite of Maldon°
5755and the crow
5756have naturally selected to be un-winged;
5757to go on the belly, to
5758sap sap sap
5759with festered spines, arched under the moon; furrit with°
5760whiskered snouts the secret parts of us.
576130
5762
5763When it’s all quiet you can hear them:
5764scrut scrut scrut
5765when it’s as quiet as this is.
5766It’s so very still.
5767Your body fits the crevice of the bay in the most comfortable
5768fashion imaginable.
5769It’s cushy enough.°
5770[Distribution of rations, from Part 4]
5771In a little while they came again, the Lance-Corporal with
5772his file of two, carrying a full sack.
5773No. 1 section gathered, bunched, in the confined traverse;°
5774that lance-jack balances carefully his half mess-tin of rum.°
5775They bring for them,
5776in common:
5777Loose tea mingled with white sugar, tied in heel of sandbag,
5778pudding fashion, congealed, clinging to the hemp mesh,
5779and one tin of butter.
5780They bring for them,
578110
5782
5783for each and for several;
5784he makes division, he ordains:
5785three ration biscuits,
5786one-third part of a loaf,
5787two Field Service postcards,°
5788one Field Service envelope,
5789one piece of cheese of uncertain dimension, clammy, pitted
5790with earth and very hairy, imprinted with the sodden hessian’s
5791weft and warp; powerfully unappetising;
5792one tin of Tickler’s plum and apple for three,°
579320
5794
5795two packets of Trumpeter for cigarette smokers,°
5796one tin of issue tobacco for pipe smokers.
5797[The moments before going over the top, from Part 7]
5798Perhaps they’ll cancel it.
5799O blow fall out the officers cantcher, like a wet afternoon°
5800or the King’s Birthday.°
5801Or you read it again many times to see if it will come different:
5802you can’t believe the cup won’t pass from
5803or they won’t make a better show°
5804in the Garden.°
5805Won’t someone forbid the banns°
5806or God himself will stay their hands.
580710
5808
5809It just can’t happen in our family°
5810even though a thousand
5811and ten thousand at thy right hand.
5812[Encountering the enemy, from Part 7]
5813It was largely his machine guns in Acid Copse that did it, and°
5814our own heavies firing by map reference, with all lines phut°
5815and no reliable liaison.
5816So you just lay where you were and shielded what you could
5817of your body.
5818It slackened a little and they try short rushes and you find
5819yourself alone in a denseness of hazel-brush and body high
5820bramble and between the bright interstices and multifarious°
5821green-stuff, grey textile, scarlet-edged goes and comes—and
5822there is another withdrawing-heel from the thicket.
582310
5824
5825His light stick-bomb winged above your thorn-bush, and°
5826aged oak-timbers shiver and leaves shower like thrown blossom
5827for a conqueror.
5828You tug at rusted pin—
5829it gives unexpectedly and your fingers pressed to release
5830flange.°
5831You loose the thing into the underbrush.
5832Dark-faceted iron oval lobs heavily to fungus-cushioned
5833dank, wobbles under low leaf to lie, near where the heel drew
5834out just now; and tough root-fibres boomerang to top-most
583520
5836
5837green filigree and earth clods flung disturb fresh fragile shoots°
5838that brush the sky.
5839You huddle closer to your mossy bed
5840you make yourself scarce
5841you scramble forward and pretend not to see,
5842but ruby drops from young beech-sprigs—
5843are bright your hands and face.
5844And the other one cries from the breaking-buckthorn.
5845He calls for Elsa, for Manuela
5846for the parish priest of Burkersdorf in Saxe Altenburg.°
584730
5848
5849You grab his dropt stick-bomb as you go, but somehow you
5850don’t fancy it and anyway you forget how it works. You definitely
5851like the coloured label on the handle, you throw it to°
5852the tall wood-weeds.
5853So double detonations, back and fro like well-played-up-to
5854service at a net, mark left and right the forcing of the groves.
5855[Digging in after an assault, from Part 7]
5856But it’s no good you cant do it with these toy spades, you want
5857axes, heavy iron for tough anchoring roots, tendoned deep
5858down.
5859When someone brought up the Jerry picks it was better,°
5860and you did manage to make some impression. And the next
5861one to you, where he bends to delve gets it in the middle body.
5862Private Ball is not instructed, and how could you stay so fast
5863a tide, it would be difficult with him screaming whenever
5864you move him ever so little, let alone try with jack-knife to
5865cut clear the hampering cloth.
586610
5867
5868The First Field Dressing is futile as frantic seaman’s shift
5869bunged to stoved bulwark, so soon the darking flood perco-°
5870lates and he dies in your arms.
5871And get back to that digging can’t yer—
5872this aint a bloody Wake
5873for these dead, who soon will have their dead
5874for burial clods heaped over.
5875Nor time for halsing°
5876nor to clip green wounds°
5877nor weeping Maries bringing anointments°
587820
5879
5880neither any word spoken
5881nor no decent nor appropriate sowing of this seed
5882nor remembrance of the harvesting
5883of the renascent cycle°
5884and return
5885nor shaving of the head nor ritual incising for these viriles under
5886each tree.°
5887No one sings: Lully lully
5888for the mate whose blood runs down.°
5889
5890
5891Festubert: The Old German Line
5892
5893Sparse mists of moonlight hurt our eyes
5894With gouged and scourged uncertainties
5895Of soul and soil in agonies.
5896One derelict grim skeleton
5897That drench and dry had battened on
5898Still seemed to wish us malison;°
5899Still zipped across the gouts of lead
5900Or cracked like whipcracks overhead;
5901The gray rags fluttered on the dead.°
5902May 1916
5903Thiepval Wood
5904
5905The tired air groans as the heavies swing over, the river-hollows
5906boom;°
5907The shell-fountains leap from the swamps, and with wildfire and
5908fume
5909The shoulder of the chalkdown convulses.°
5910Then jabbering echoes stampede in the slatting wood,
5911Ember-black the gibbet trees like bones or thorns protrude°
5912From the poisonous smoke—past all impulses.
5913To them these silvery dews can never again be dear,
5914Nor the blue javelin-flame of thunderous noons strike fear.
5915September 1916
59161916 seen from 1921
5917
5918Tired with dull grief, grown old before my day,
5919I sit in solitude and only hear
5920Long silent laughters, murmurings of dismay,
5921The lost intensities of hope and fear;
5922In those old marshes yet the rifles lie,
5923On the thin breastwork flutter the grey rags,
5924The very books I read are there—and I
5925Dead as the men I loved, wait while life drags
5926Its wounded length from those sad streets of war
5927Into green places here, that were my own;
592810
5929
5930But now what once was mine is mine no more,
5931I seek such neighbours here and I find none.
5932With such strong gentleness and tireless will
5933Those ruined houses seared themselves in me,
5934Passionate I look for their dumb story still,
5935And the charred stub outspeaks the living tree.
5936I rise up at the singing of a bird
5937And scarcely knowing slink along the lane,
5938I dare not give a soul a look or word
5939Where all have homes and none’s at home in vain:
594020
5941
5942Deep red the rose burned in the grim redoubt,°
5943The self-sown wheat around was like a flood,
5944In the hot path the lizard lolled time out,
5945The saints in broken shrines were bright as blood.
5946Sweet Mary’s shrine between the sycamores!°
5947There we would go, my friend of friends and I,
5948And snatch long moments from the grudging wars,
5949Whose dark made light intense to see them by.
5950Shrewd bit the morning fog, the whining shots
5951Spun from the wrangling wire; then in warm swoon
595230
5953
5954The sun hushed all but the cool orchard plots,
5955We crept in the tall grass and slept till noon.
5956Illusions
5957
5958Trenches in the moonlight, in the lulling moonlight
5959Have had their loveliness; when dancing dewy grasses
5960Caressed us passing along their earthy lanes;
5961When the crucifix hanging over was strangely illumined,
5962And one imagined music, one even heard the brave bird
5963In the sighing orchards flute above the weedy well.
5964There are such moments; forgive me that I note them,
5965Nor gloze that there comes soon the nemesis of beauty,°
5966In the fluttering relics that at first glimmer wakened
5967Terror—the no-man’s ditch suddenly forking:
596810
5969
5970There, the enemy’s best with bombs and brains and courage!
5971—Softly, swiftly, at once be animal and angel—
5972But, O no, no, they’re Death’s malkins dangling in the wire°
5973For the moon’s interpretation.
5974Concert Party: Busseboom
5975
5976The stage was set, the house was packed,
5977The famous troop began;
5978Our laughter thundered, act by act;
5979Time light as sunbeams ran.
5980Dance sprang and spun and neared and fled,
5981Jest chirped at gayest pitch,
5982Rhythm dazzled, action sped
5983Most comically rich.
5984With generals and lame privates both
5985Such charms worked wonders, till
598610
5987
5988The show was over—lagging loth
5989We faced the sunset chill;
5990And standing on the sandy way,
5991With the cracked church peering past,
5992We heard another matinée,
5993We heard the maniac blast
5994Of barrage south by Saint Eloi,°
5995And the red lights flaming there
5996Called madness: Come, my bonny boy,
5997And dance to the latest air.
599820
5999
6000To this new concert, white we stood;
6001Cold certainty held our breath;
6002While men in tunnels below Larch Wood°
6003Were kicking men to death.
6004Vlamertinghe: Passing the Chateau, July 1917
6005
6006‘And all her silken flanks with garlands drest’—
6007But we are coming to the sacrifice.°
6008Must those have flowers who are not yet gone West?
6009May those have flowers who live with death and lice?
6010This must be the floweriest place
6011That earth allows; the queenly face
6012Of the proud mansion borrows grace for grace
6013Spite of those brute guns lowing at the skies.
6014Bold great daisies, golden lights,
6015Bubbling roses’ pinks and whites—
601610
6017
6018Such a gay carpet! poppies by the million;
6019Such damask! such vermilion!
6020But if you ask me, mate, the choice of colour
6021Is scarcely right; this red should have been much duller.
6022La Quinque Rue
6023
6024O road in dizzy moonlight bleak and blue,
6025With forlorn effigies of farms besprawled,
6026With trees bitterly bare or snapped in two,
6027Why riddle me thus—attracted and appalled?
6028For surely now the grounds both left and right
6029Are tilled, and scarless houses undismayed
6030Glow in the lustrous mercy of sweet night
6031And one may hear the flute or fiddle played.
6032Why lead me then
6033Through the foul-gorged, the cemeterial fen
603410
6035
6036To fear’s sharp sentries? Why do dreadful rags
6037Fur these bulged banks, and feebly move to the wind?
6038That battered drum, say why it clacks and brags?
6039Another and another! what’s behind?
6040How is it that these flints flame out fire’s tongue,
6041Shrivelling my thought? these collapsed skeletons,
6042What are they, and these iron hunks among?
6043Why clink those spades, why glare these startling suns
6044And topple to the wet and crawling grass,
6045Where the strange briars in taloned hedges twine?
604620
6047
6048What need of that stopped tread, that countersign?
6049O road, I know those muttering groups you pass.
6050I know your way of turning blood to glass.
6051But, I am told, to-night you safely shine
6052To trim roofs and cropped fields; the error’s mine.
6053‘Trench Nomenclature’
6054
6055Genius named them, as I live! What but genius could compress
6056In a title what man’s humour said to man’s supreme distress?
6057Jacob’s Ladder ran reversed, from earth to a fiery pit extending,°
6058With not angels but poor Angles, those for the most part descending.°
6059Thence Brock’s Benefit commanded endless fireworks by two nations,°
6060Yet some voices there were raised against the rival coruscations.°
6061Picturedome peeped out upon a dream, not Turner could surpass,°
6062And presently the picture moved, and greyed with corpses and
6063morass.°
6064So down south; and if remembrance travel north, she marvels yet
6065At the sharp Shakespearean names, and with sad mirth her eyes are wet.
606610
6067
6068The Great Wall of China rose, a four-foot breastwork, fronting guns°
6069That, when the word dropped, beat at once its silly ounces with brute tons;
6070Odd Krab Krawl on paper looks, and odd the foul-breathed alley twisted,
6071As one feared to twist there too, if Minnie, forward quean, insisted.°
6072Where the Yser at Dead End floated on its bloody waters°
6073Dead and rotten monstrous fish, note (east) The Pike and Eel headquarters.
6074Ah, such names and apparitions! name on name! what’s in a name?°
6075From the fabled vase the genie in his shattering horror came.°
6076‘Can you Remember?’
6077
6078Yes, I still remember
6079The whole thing in a way;
6080Edge and exactitude
6081Depend on the day.
6082Of all that prodigious scene
6083There seems scanty loss,
6084Though mists mainly float and screen
6085Canal, spire and fosse;°
6086Though commonly I fail to name
6087That once obvious Hill,
608810
6089
6090And where we went, and whence we came
6091To be killed, or kill.
6092Those mists are spiritual
6093And luminous-obscure,
6094Evolved of countless circumstance
6095Of which I am sure;
6096Of which, at the instance
6097Of sound, smell, change and stir,
6098New-old shapes for ever
6099Intensely recur.
610020
6101
6102And some are sparkling, laughing, singing,
6103Young, heroic, mild;
6104And some incurable, twisted,
6105Shrieking, dumb, defiled.
6106Ancre Sunshine
6107
6108In all his glory the sun was high and glowing
6109Over the farm world where we found great peace,
6110And clearest blue the winding river flowing
6111Seemed to be celebrating a release
6112From all that speed and music of its own
6113Which but for some few cows we heard alone.
6114Here half a century before might I,
6115Had something chanced, about this point have lain,
6116Looking with failing sense on such blue sky,
6117And then became a name with others slain.
611810
6119
6120But that thought vanished. Claire was wandering free°
6121Miraumont way in the golden tasselled lea.°
6122The railway trains went by, and dreamily
6123I thought of them as planets in their course,
6124Thought bound perhaps for Arras, how would we°
6125Have wondered once if through the furious force
6126Murdering our world one of these same had come,
6127Friendly and sensible—‘the war’s over, chum’.
6128And now it seemed Claire was afar, and I
6129Alone, and where she went perhaps the mill°
613020
6131
6132That used to be had rised again, and by
6133All that had fallen was in its old form still,
6134For her to witness, with no cold surprise,
6135In one of those moments when nothing dies.
6136
6137
6138Winter Warfare
6139
6140Colonel Cold strode up the Line
6141(tabs of rime and spurs of ice);
6142stiffened all that met his glare:
6143horses, men, and lice.
6144Visited a forward post,
6145left them burning, ear to foot;
6146fingers stuck to biting steel,
6147toes to frozen boot.
6148Stalked on into No Man’s Land,
6149turned the wire to fleecy wool,
615010
6151
6152iron stakes to sugar sticks
6153snapping at a pull.
6154Those who watched with hoary eyes
6155saw two figures gleaming there;
6156Hauptmann Kälte, Colonel Cold,°
6157gaunt in the grey air.
6158Stiffly, tinkling spurs they moved,
6159glassy-eyed, with glinting heel
6160stabbing those who lingered there
6161torn by screaming steel.
616220
6163The Soldier Addresses his Body
6164
6165I shall be mad if you get smashed about,
6166we’ve had good times together, you and I;
6167although you groused a bit when luck was out,
6168say a girl turned us down, or we went dry.
6169But there’s a world of things we haven’t done,
6170countries not seen, where people do strange things;
6171eat fish alive, and mimic in the sun
6172the solemn gestures of their stone-grey kings.
6173I’ve heard of forests that are dim at noon
6174where snakes and creepers wrestle all day long;
617510
6176
6177where vivid beasts grow pale with the full moon,
6178gibber and cry, and wail a mad old song;
6179because at the full moon the Hippogriff°
6180with crinkled ivory snout and agate feet,°
6181with his green eye will glare them cold and stiff
6182for the coward Wyvern to come down and eat.°
6183Vodka and kvass, and bitter mountain wines°
6184we’ve never drunk; nor snatched the bursting grapes
6185to pelt slim girls among Sicilian vines,
6186who’d flicker through the leaves, faint frolic shapes.
618720
6188
6189Yes, there’s a world of things we’ve never done,
6190but it’s a sweat to knock them into rhyme,
6191let’s have a drink, and give the cards a run
6192and leave dull verse to the dull peaceful time.
6193Advice to a Girl from the War
6194
6195Weep for me half a day,
6196then dry your eyes.
6197Think! is a mess of clay
6198worth a girl’s sighs?
6199Sigh three days if you can
6200for my waste blood.
6201Think then, you love a man
6202whose face is mud;
6203whose flesh and hair thrill not
6204to any touch.
620510
6206
6207Dear! best things soonest rot!
6208Dream not of such!
6209Trench Poets
6210
6211I knew a man, he was my chum,
6212but he grew darker day by day,
6213and would not brush the flies away,
6214nor blanch however fierce the hum
6215of passing shells; I used to read,
6216to rouse him, random things from Donne—
6217like ‘Get with child a mandrake-root.’°
6218But you can tell he was far gone,
6219for he lay gaping, mackerel-eyed,
6220and stiff and senseless as a post
622110
6222
6223even when that old poet cried
6224‘I long to talk with some old lover’s ghost.’°
6225I tried the Elegies one day,
6226but he, because he heard me say:
6227‘What needst thou have more covering than a man?’°
6228grinned nastily, so then I knew
6229the worms had got his brains at last.
6230There was one thing I still might do
6231to starve those worms; I racked my head
6232for wholesome lines and quoted Maud.°
623320
6234
6235His grin got worse and I could see
6236he sneered at passion’s purity.
6237He stank so badly, though we were great chums
6238I had to leave him; then rats ate his thumbs.
6239War and Peace
6240
6241In sodden trenches I have heard men speak,
6242though numb and wretched, wise and witty things;
6243and loved them for the stubbornness that clings
6244longest to laughter when Death’s pulleys creak;
6245and seeing cool nurses move on tireless feet
6246to do abominable things with grace,
6247dreamed them dear sisters in that haunted place
6248where, with child’s voices, strong men howl or bleat.
6249Yet now those men lay stubborn courage by,
6250riding dull-eyed and silent in the train
625110
6252
6253to old-man stools; or sell gay-coloured socks
6254and listen fearfully for Death; so I
6255love the low-laughing girls, who now again
6256go daintily, in thin and flowery frocks.
6257Moonrise over Battlefield
6258
6259After the fallen sun the wind was sad
6260like violins behind immense old walls.
6261Trees were musicians swaying round the bend
6262of a woman in gloomy halls.
6263In privacy of music she made ready
6264with comb and silver dust and fard;°
6265under her silken rest her little belly
6266shone like a bladder of sweet lard.
6267She drifted with the grand air of a punk°
6268on Heaven’s streets soliciting white saints;
626910
6270
6271then lay in bright communion on a cloud-bank
6272as one who near extreme of pleasure faints.
6273Then I thought, standing in the ruined trench,
6274(all round, dead Boche white-shirted slumped like sheep),°
6275‘Why does this damned entrancing bitch
6276choose all her lovers among them that sleep?’
6277
6278Never Mind
6279
6280(Air: ‘Never Mind’)
6281If the sergeant drinks your rum, never mind;
6282And your face may lose its smile, never mind.
6283He’s entitled to a tot but not the bleeding lot,
6284If the sergeant drinks your rum, never mind.
6285When old Jerry shells the trench, never mind;°
6286When old Jerry shells the trench, never mind.
6287Though the sandbags bust and fly you have only once to die,
6288If old Jerry shells the trench, never mind.
6289If you get stuck on the wire, never mind;
6290If you get stuck on the wire, never mind.
629110
6292
6293Though you’re stuck there all the day, they count you dead and
6294stop your pay,
6295If you get stuck on the wire, never mind.
6296If the sergeant says you’re mad, never mind;
6297P’raps you are a little bit, never mind.
6298Just be calm, don’t answer back, ’cause the sergeant stands no ‘slack’,
6299So if he says you’re mad, well—you are.
6300Mademoiselle from Armenteers
6301
6302Mademoiselle from Armenteers, parlay-voo,°
6303Mademoiselle from Armenteers, parlay-voo,
6304Mademoiselle from Armenteers,
6305She hasn’t been kissed for forty years,
6306Hinky pinky, parlay-voo.
6307Our top kick in Armenteers, parlay-voo,°
6308Our top kick in Armenteers, parlay-voo,
6309Our top kick in Armenteers
6310Soon broke the spell of forty years,
6311Hinky pinky, parlay-voo.
631210
6313
6314The officers get all the steak, parlay-voo,
6315The officers get all the steak, parlay-voo,
6316The officers get all the steak
6317And all we get is a belly ache,
6318Hinky pinky, parlay-voo.
6319From gay Paree we heard guns roar, parlay-voo,°
6320From gay Paree we heard guns roar, parlay-voo,
6321From gay Paree we heard guns roar,
6322But all we heard was ‘Je t’adore’,°
6323Hinky pinky, parlay-voo.
632420
6325
6326You might forget the gas and shell, parlay-voo,
6327You might forget the gas and shell, parlay-voo,
6328You might forget the gas and shell,
6329You’ll never forget the mademoiselle,
6330Hinky pinky, parlay-voo.
6331Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag
6332
6333Private Perks is a funny little codger°
6334With a smile—a funny smile.
6335Five-feet-none, he’s an artful little dodger°
6336With a smile—a sunny smile.
6337Flush or broke, he’ll have his little joke,°
6338He can’t be suppress’d.
6339All the other fellows have to grin
6340When he gets this off his chest, Hi!
6341CHORUS
6342‘Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag,
6343And smile, smile, smile.
634410
6345
6346While you’ve a lucifer to light your fag,°
6347Smile, boys, that’s the style.
6348What’s the use of worrying?
6349It never was worth while, so
6350Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag,
6351And smile, smile, smile.’
6352Private Perks went a-marching into Flanders°
6353With his smile—his funny smile.
6354He was lov’d by the privates and commanders
6355For his smile—his sunny smile.
635620
6357
6358When a throng of Germans came along
6359With a mighty swing,
6360Perks yell’d out, ‘This little bunch is mine!
6361Keep your heads down, boys, and sing, Hi!
6362CHORUS
6363‘Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag, (etc.)
6364Private Perks he came back from Bosche shooting°
6365With his smile—his funny smile.
6366Round his home he then set about recruiting
6367With his smile—his sunny smile.
6368He told all his pals, the short, the tall,
6369What a time he’d had;
637030
6371
6372And as each enlisted like a man,
6373Private Perks said ‘Now my lad, Hi!
6374CHORUS
6375‘Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag, (etc.)
6376Fred Karno’s Army
6377
6378(Air: ‘Aurelia’, sung to the hymn ‘The Church’s One Foundation’)
6379We are Fred Karno’s Army,
6380What bloody use are we?
6381We cannot fight, we cannot shoot,
6382So we joined the infantry.
6383But when we get to Berlin,
6384The Kaiser he will say,°
6385‘Hoch! Hoch! Mein Gott,°
6386What a jolly fine lot
6387Are the ragtime infantry.’°
6388We are Fred Karno’s Army,
638910
6390
6391A jolly lot are we,
6392Fred Karno is our Captain,
6393Charlie Chaplin our O.C.°
6394But when we get to Berlin,
6395The Kaiser he will say,
6396‘Hoch! Hoch! Mein Gott,
6397What a jolly fine lot
6398Are the ragtime infantry.’°
6399I Want to Go Home
6400
6401(Air: Traditional)
6402I want to go home, I want to go home.
6403I don’t want to go to the trenches no more,
6404Where whizzbangs and shrapnel they whistle and roar.°
6405Take me over the sea where the Alleyman can’t get at me.°
6406Oh my, I don’t want to die, I want to go home.
6407I want to go home, I want to go home,
6408I don’t want to visit la Belle France no more,
6409For oh the Jack Johnsons they make such a roar.°
6410Take me over the sea where the snipers they can’t snipe at me.
6411Oh my, I don’t want to die, I want to go home.
641210
6413The Bells of Hell
6414
6415(Air: ‘She Only Answered “Ting-A-Ling-A-Ling” ’)
6416The bells of hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling
6417For you but not for me:
6418And the little devils how they sing-a-ling-a-ling
6419For you but not for me.
6420O Death, where is thy sting-a-ling-a-ling,
6421O Grave, thy victor-ee?°
6422The bells of hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling,
6423For you but not for me.
6424If It’s a German—Guns Up!
6425
6426(Air: ‘If It’s a Lady—Thumbs Up!’)
6427If it’s a German—Guns Up!
6428If it’s a German with hands up,
6429Don’t start taking prisoners now,
6430Give it ’em in the neck and say ‘Bow-wow.’
6431If it’s a German—Guns Up!
6432Stick him in the leg—it is sublime.
6433If he whispers in your ear,
6434‘Kamerad! Kamerad!’°
6435Guns Up—every time.
6436Après la Guerre Fini
6437
6438(Air: ‘Sous les Ponts de Paris’)
6439Après la guerre fini,
6440Soldat Anglais parti;°
6441Mam’selle Fransay boko pleuray°
6442Après la guerre fini.
6443Après la guerre fini,
6444Soldat Anglais parti,
6445Mademoiselle in the family way,°
6446Après la guerre fini.
6447Après la guerre fini,
6448Soldat Anglais parti;
644910
6450
6451Mademoiselle can go to hell
6452Après la guerre fini.
6453The Old Barbed Wire
6454
6455(Air: Traditional)
6456If you want to find the sergeant,
6457I know where he is, I know where he is.
6458If you want to find the sergeant,
6459I know where he is,
6460He’s lying on the canteen floor.
6461I’ve seen him, I’ve seen him,
6462Lying on the canteen floor,
6463I’ve seen him,
6464Lying on the canteen floor.
6465If you want to find the quarter-bloke,°
646610
6467
6468I know where he is, I know where he is.
6469If you want to find the quarter-bloke,
6470I know where he is,
6471He’s miles and miles behind the line.
6472I’ve seen him, I’ve seen him,
6473Miles and miles behind the line,
6474I’ve seen him,
6475Miles and miles behind the line.
6476If you want to find the sergeant-major,
6477I know where he is, I know where he is.
647820
6479
6480If you want to find the sergeant-major,
6481I know where he is,
6482He’s boozing up the privates’ rum.
6483I’ve seen him, I’ve seen him,
6484Boozing up the privates’ rum,
6485I’ve seen him,
6486Boozing up the privates’ rum.
6487If you want to find the C.O.,°
6488I know where he is, I know where he is.
6489If you want to find the C.O.,
649030
6491
6492I know where he is,
6493He’s down in the deep dug-outs.
6494I’ve seen him, I’ve seen him,
6495Down in the deep dug-outs,
6496I’ve seen him,
6497Down in the deep dug-outs.
6498If you want to find the old battalion,
6499I know where they are, I know where they are.
6500If you want to find the old battalion.
6501I know where they are,
650240
6503
6504They’re hanging on the old barbed wire.
6505I’ve seen ’em, I’ve seen ’em,
6506Hanging on the old barbed wire,
6507I’ve seen ’em,
6508Hanging on the old barbed wire.
6509Hush! Here Comes a Whizz-Bang
6510
6511(Air: ‘Hush! Here Comes the Dream Man’)
6512Hush! Here comes a whizz-bang,
6513Hush! Here comes a whizz-bang,
6514Now then soldier, get down them stairs,
6515Into your dug-out and say your prayers.
6516Hush! Here comes a whizz-bang,
6517And it’s making straight for you:
6518And you’ll see all the wonders of No Man’s Land
6519If a whizz-bang (BANG!) gets you.
6520That Shit Shute
6521
6522(Air: ‘Wrap Me Up in My Tarpaulin Jacket’)
6523The General inspecting the trenches
6524Exclaimed with a horrified shout,
6525‘I refuse to command a Division
6526Which leaves its excreta about.’
6527But nobody took any notice
6528No one was prepared to refute,
6529That the presence of shit was congenial
6530Compared with the presence of Shute.
6531And certain responsible critics
6532Made haste to reply to his words
653310
6534
6535Observing that his Staff advisers
6536Consisted entirely of turds.
6537For shit may be shot at odd corners
6538And paper supplied there to suit,
6539But a shit would be shot without mourners
6540If somebody shot that shit Shute.
6541Bombed Last Night
6542
6543(Air: ‘Drunk Last Night and Drunk the Night Before’)
6544Bombed last night and bombed the night before,
6545Going to get bombed tonight if we never get bombed anymore.
6546When we’re bombed, we are scared as we can be.
6547Can’t stop the bombing from old Higher Germany.°
6548CHORUS
6549They’re warning us, they’re warning us
6550One shell hole for the four of us
6551Thank your lucky stars there is no more of us
6552’Cos one of us can fill it all alone.
6553Gassed last night and gassed the night before,
6554Going to get gassed tonight if we never get gassed anymore.
655510
6556
6557When we’re gassed we’re sick as we can be.
6558For Phosgene and Mustard Gas is much too much for me.°
6559CHORUS
6560They’re killing us, they’re killing us
6561One respirator for the four of us.
6562Thank your lucky stars there is no more of us
6563So one of us can take it all alone.
6564I Wore a Tunic
6565
6566(Air: ‘I Wore a Tulip’)
6567I wore a tunic,
6568A dirty khaki-tunic,
6569And you wore civilian clothes.
6570We fought and bled at Loos°
6571While you were on the booze,
6572The booze that no one here knows.
6573Oh, you were with the wenches
6574While we were in the trenches
6575Facing the German foe.
6576Oh, you were a-slacking
657710
6578
6579While we were attacking
6580Down the Menin Road.°
6581Good-bye-ee!
6582
6583Brother Bertie went away
6584To do his bit the other day°
6585With a smile on his lips and his lieutenant ‘pips’°
6586Upon his shoulder, bright and gay.
6587As the train mov’d out he said,
6588‘Remember me to all the ’Birds!’°
6589Then he wagg’d his paw, and went away to war,
6590Shouting out these pathetic words,
6591CHORUS
6592‘Good-bye-ee! good-bye-ee!
6593Wipe the tear, baby dear, from your eye-ee.
659410
6595
6596Tho’ it’s hard to part, I know,
6597I’ll be tickled to death to go.
6598Don’t cry-ee! don’t sigh-ee!
6599There’s a silver lining in the sky-ee.
6600Bonsoir, old thing! cheerio! chin-chin!
6601Nahpoo! Toodle-oo! Good-bye-ee!’°
6602Marmaduke Horatio Flynn,
6603Although he’d whiskers round his chin,
6604In a play took a part, and he touch’d ev’ry heart
6605As little Willie in ‘East Lynne’.°
660620
6607
6608As the little dying child
6609Upon his snow-white bed he lay,
6610And amid their tears the people gave three cheers
6611When he said as he pass’d away,
6612CHORUS
6613Good-bye-ee! good-bye-ee! (etc.)
6614At a concert down at Kew°
6615Some convalescents dress’d in blue
6616Had to hear Lady Lee, who had turn’d eighty-three,°
6617Sing all the old, old songs she knew.
6618Then she made a speech and said,
6619‘I look upon you boys with pride,
662030
6621
6622And for what you’ve done I’m going to kiss each one.’
6623Then they all grabb’d their sticks and cried,
6624CHORUS
6625Good-bye-ee! good-bye-ee! (etc.)
6626Little Private Patrick Shaw
6627He was a prisoner of war
6628Till a Hun with a gun called him ‘pig-dog’ for fun,°
6629Then Paddy punch’d him on the jaw.
6630Right across the barb-wire fence
6631The German dropp’d, then, dear, oh, dear!
6632All the wire gave way, and Paddy yell’d ‘Hooray!’
6633As he ran for the Dutch frontier.°
663440
6635
6636CHORUS
6637Good-bye-ee! good-bye-ee! (etc.)
6638Oh! It’s a Lovely War
6639
6640Up to your waist in water, up to your eyes in slush,
6641using the kind of language that makes the sergeant blush;
6642who wouldn’t join the army, that’s what we all enquire,
6643don’t we pity the poor civilians sitting beside the fire?
6644CHORUS
6645Oh! Oh! Oh! It’s a lovely war,
6646who wouldn’t be a soldier eh!
6647Oh! it’s a shame to take the pay.
6648As soon as ‘reveille’ has gone, we feel just as heavy as lead,°
6649but we never get up till the sergeant brings our breakfast up to bed.
6650Oh! Oh! Oh! It’s a lovely war,
665110
6652
6653what do we want with eggs and ham
6654when we’ve got plum and apple jam?°
6655Form fours! Right turn!°
6656How shall we spend the money we earn?
6657Oh! Oh! Oh! It’s a lovely war.
6658When does a soldier grumble? When does he make a fuss?
6659No one is more contented in all the world than us:
6660Oh! it’s a ‘cushy’ life, boys really we love it so,°
6661once a fellow was sent on leave and simply refus’d to go.
6662CHORUS
6663Oh! Oh! Oh! It’s a lovely war, (etc.)
6664Come to the Cookhouse door boys, sniff at the lovely stew.°
666520
6666
6667Who is it says the Col’nel gets better grub than you?
6668Any complaints this morning? Do we complain? Not we,
6669what’s the matter with lumps of onion floating around the tea?
6670CHORUS
6671Oh! Oh! Oh! It’s a lovely war, (etc.)