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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/14757-0.txt b/14757-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..af594c6 --- /dev/null +++ b/14757-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1829 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14757 *** + +THE WAR POEMS OF SIEGFRIED SASSOON + + +1919 + +LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN + + + + +Dans la trêve désolée de cette matinée, ces hommes qui avaient été +tenaillés par la fatigue, fouettés par la pluie, bouleversés par toute +une nuit de tonnerre, ces rescapés des volcans et de l'inondation +entrevoyaient à quel point la guerre, aussi hideuse au moral qu'au +physique, non seulement viole le bon sens, avilit les grandes idées, +commande tous les crimes--mais ils se rappelaient combien elle avait +développé en eux et autour d'eux tous les mauvais instincts sans en +excepter un seul; la méchanceté jusqu'au sadisme, l'égoïsme jusqu'à la +férocité, le besoin de jouir jusqu'à la folie. + +HENRI BARBUSSE. + +(_Le Feu._) + + + + +NOTE + + +Of these 64 poems, 12 are now published for the first time. The +remainder are selected from two previous volumes. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +I + +PRELUDE: THE TROOPS 11 + +DREAMERS 13 + +THE REDEEMER 14 + +TRENCH DUTY 16 + +WIRERS 17 + +BREAK OF DAY 18 + +A WORKING PARTY 21 + +STAND-TO: GOOD FRIDAY MORNING 24 + +"IN THE PINK" 25 + +THE HERO 26 + +BEFORE THE BATTLE 27 + +THE ROAD 28 + +TWO HUNDRED YEARS AFTER 29 + +THE DREAM 30 + +AT CARNOY 32 + +BATTALION RELIEF 33 + +THE DUG-OUT 35 + +THE REAR-GUARD 36 + +I STOOD WITH THE DEAD 38 + +SUICIDE IN TRENCHES 39 + +ATTACK 40 + +COUNTER-ATTACK 41 + +THE EFFECT 43 + +REMORSE 44 + +IN AN UNDERGROUND DRESSING-STATION 45 + +DIED OF WOUNDS 46 + + +II + +"THEY" 47 + +BASE DETAILS 48 + +LAMENTATIONS 49 + +THE GENERAL 50 + +HOW TO DIE 51 + +EDITORIAL IMPRESSIONS 52 + +FIGHT TO A FINISH 53 + +ATROCITIES 54 + +THE FATHERS 55 + +"BLIGHTERS" 56 + +GLORY OF WOMEN 57 + +THEIR FRAILTY 58 + +DOES IT MATTER? 59 + +SURVIVORS 60 + +JOY-BELLS 61 + +ARMS AND THE MAN 62 + +WHEN I'M AMONG A BLAZE OF LIGHTS 63 + +THE KISS 64 + +THE TOMBSTONE-MAKER 65 + +THE ONE-LEGGED MAN 66 + +RETURN OF THE HEROES 67 + + +III + +TWELVE MONTHS AFTER 68 + +TO ANY DEAD OFFICER 69 + +SICK LEAVE 72 + +BANISHMENT 73 + +AUTUMN 74 + +REPRESSION OF WAR EXPERIENCE 75 + +TOGETHER 77 + +THE HAWTHORN TREE 78 + +CONCERT PARTY 79 + +NIGHT ON THE CONVOY 81 + +A LETTER HOME 83 + +RECONCILIATION 87 + +MEMORIAL TABLET (GREAT WAR) 88 + +THE DEATH-BED 89 + +AFTERMATH 91 + +SONG-BOOKS OF THE WAR 93 + +EVERYONE SANG 95 + + + + +I + + +PRELUDE: THE TROOPS + +Dim, gradual thinning of the shapeless gloom +Shudders to drizzling daybreak that reveals +Disconsolate men who stamp their sodden boots +And turn dulled, sunken faces to the sky +Haggard and hopeless. They, who have beaten down +The stale despair of night, must now renew +Their desolation in the truce of dawn, +Murdering the livid hours that grope for peace. + +Yet these, who cling to life with stubborn hands, +Can grin through storms of death and find a gap +In the clawed, cruel tangles of his defence. +They march from safety, and the bird-sung joy +Of grass-green thickets, to the land where all +Is ruin, and nothing blossoms but the sky +That hastens over them where they endure +Sad, smoking, flat horizons, reeking woods, +And foundered trench-lines volleying doom for doom. + +O my brave brown companions, when your souls +Flock silently away, and the eyeless dead, +Shame the wild beast of battle on the ridge, +Death will stand grieving in that field of war +Since your unvanquished hardihood is spent. +And through some mooned Valhalla there will pass +Battalions and battalions, scarred from hell; +The unreturning army that was youth; +The legions who have suffered and are dust. + + +DREAMERS + +Soldiers are citizens of death's gray land, + Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows. +In the great hour of destiny they stand, + Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows. +Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win + Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives. +Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin + They think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives. + +I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats, + And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain, +Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats, + And mocked by hopeless longing to regain +Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats, + And going to the office in the train. + + +THE REDEEMER + +Darkness: the rain sluiced down; the mire was deep; +It was past twelve on a mid-winter night, +When peaceful folk in beds lay snug asleep: +There, with much work to do before the light, +We lugged our clay-sucked boots as best we might +Along the trench; sometimes a bullet sang, +And droning shells burst with a hollow bang; +We were soaked, chilled and wretched, every one. +Darkness: the distant wink of a huge gun. + +I turned in the black ditch, loathing the storm; +A rocket fizzed and burned with blanching flare, +And lit the face of what had been a form +Floundering in mirk. He stood before me there; +I say that he was Christ; stiff in the glare, +And leaning forward from his burdening task, +Both arms supporting it; his eyes on mine +Stared from the woeful head that seemed a mask +Of mortal pain in Hell's unholy shine. + +No thorny crown, only a woollen cap +He wore--an English soldier, white and strong, +Who loved his time like any simple chap, +Good days of work and sport and homely song; +Now he has learned that nights are very long, +And dawn a watching of the windowed sky. +But to the end, unjudging, he'll endure +Horror and pain, not uncontent to die +That Lancaster on Lune may stand secure. + +He faced me, reeling in his weariness, +Shouldering his load of planks, so hard to bear. +I say that he was Christ, who wrought to bless +All groping things with freedom bright as air, +And with His mercy washed and made them fair. +Then the flame sank, and all grew black as pitch, +While we began to struggle along the ditch; +And some one flung his burden in the muck, +Mumbling: "O Christ Almighty, now I'm stuck!" + + +TRENCH DUTY + +Shaken from sleep, and numbed and scarce awake, +Out in the trench with three hours' watch to take, +I blunder through the splashing mirk; and then +Hear the gruff muttering voices of the men +Crouching in cabins candle-chinked with light. +Hark! There's the big bombardment on our right +Rumbling and bumping; and the dark's a glare +Of flickering horror in the sectors where +We raid the Boche; men waiting, stiff and chilled, +Or crawling on their bellies through the wire. +"What? Stretcher-bearers wanted? Some one killed?" +Five minutes ago I heard a sniper fire: +Why did he do it?... Starlight overhead-- +Blank stars. I'm wide-awake; and some chap's dead. + + +WIRERS + +"Pass it along, the wiring party's going out"-- +And yawning sentries mumble, "Wirers going out." +Unravelling; twisting; hammering stakes with muffled thud, +They toil with stealthy haste and anger in their blood. + +The Boche sends up a flare. Black forms stand rigid there, +Stock-still like posts; then darkness, and the clumsy ghosts +Stride hither and thither, whispering, tripped by clutching snare +Of snags and tangles. + Ghastly dawn with vaporous coasts +Gleams desolate along the sky, night's misery ended. + +Young Hughes was badly hit; I heard him carried away, +Moaning at every lurch; no doubt he'll die to-day. +But _we_ can say the front-line wire's been safely mended. + + +BREAK OF DAY + +There seemed a smell of autumn in the air +At the bleak end of night; he shivered there +In a dank, musty dug-out where he lay, +Legs wrapped in sand-bags,--lumps of chalk and clay +Spattering his face. Dry-mouthed, he thought, "To-day +We start the damned attack; and, Lord knows why, +Zero's at nine; how bloody if I'm done in +Under the freedom of that morning sky!" +And then he coughed and dozed, cursing the din. + +Was it the ghost of autumn in that smell +Of underground, or God's blank heart grown kind, +That sent a happy dream to him in hell?-- +Where men are crushed like clods, and crawl to find +Some crater for their wretchedness; who lie +In outcast immolation, doomed to die +Far from clean things or any hope of cheer, +Cowed anger in their eyes, till darkness brims +And roars into their heads, and they can hear +Old childish talk, and tags of foolish hymns. + +He sniffs the chilly air; (his dreaming starts). +He's riding in a dusty Sussex lane +In quiet September; slowly night departs; +And he's a living soul, absolved from pain. +Beyond the brambled fences where he goes +Are glimmering fields with harvest piled in sheaves, +And tree-tops dark against the stars grown pale; +Then, clear and shrill, a distant farm-cock crows; +And there's a wall of mist along the vale +Where willows shake their watery-sounding leaves. +He gazes on it all, and scarce believes +That earth is telling its old peaceful tale; +He thanks the blessed world that he was born.... +Then, far away, a lonely note of the horn. + +They're drawing the Big Wood! Unlatch the gate, +And set Golumpus going on the grass: +_He_ knows the corner where it's best to wait +And hear the crashing woodland chorus pass; +The corner where old foxes make their track +To the Long Spinney; that's the place to be. +The bracken shakes below an ivied tree, +And then a cub looks out; and "Tally-o-back!" +He bawls, and swings his thong with volleying crack,-- +All the clean thrill of autumn in his blood, +And hunting surging through him like a flood +In joyous welcome from the untroubled past; +While the war drifts away, forgotten at last. + +Now a red, sleepy sun above the rim +Of twilight stares along the quiet weald, +And the kind, simple country shines revealed +In solitudes of peace, no longer dim. +The old horse lifts his face and thanks the light, +Then stretches down his head to crop the green. +All things that he has loved are in his sight; +The places where his happiness has been +Are in his eyes, his heart, and they are good. + + * * * * * + +Hark! there's the horn: they're drawing the Big Wood. + + +A WORKING PARTY + +Three hours ago he blundered up the trench, +Sliding and poising, groping with his boots; +Sometimes he tripped and lurched against the walls +With hands that pawed the sodden bags of chalk. +He couldn't see the man who walked in front; +Only he heard the drum and rattle of feet +Stepping along the trench-boards,--often splashing +Wretchedly where the sludge was ankle-deep. + +Voices would grunt, "Keep to your right,--make way!" +When squeezing past the men from the front-line: +White faces peered, puffing a point of red; +Candles and braziers glinted through the chinks +And curtain-flaps of dug-outs; then the gloom +Swallowed his sense of sight; he stooped and swore +Because a sagging wire had caught his neck. +A flare went up; the shining whiteness spread +And flickered upward, showing nimble rats, +And mounds of glimmering sand-bags, bleached with rain; +Then the slow, silver moment died in dark. + +The wind came posting by with chilly gusts +And buffeting at corners, piping thin +And dreary through the crannies; rifle-shots +Would split and crack and sing along the night, +And shells came calmly through the drizzling air +To burst with hollow bang below the hill. + +Three hours ago he stumbled up the trench; +Now he will never walk that road again: +He must be carried back, a jolting lump +Beyond all need of tenderness and care; +A nine-stone corpse with nothing more to do. + +He was a young man with a meagre wife +And two pale children in a Midland town; +He showed the photograph to all his mates; +And they considered him a decent chap +Who did his work and hadn't much to say, +And always laughed at other people's jokes +Because he hadn't any of his own. + +That night, when he was busy at his job +Of piling bags along the parapet, +He thought how slow time went, stamping his feet, +And blowing on his fingers, pinched with cold. + +He thought of getting back by half-past twelve, +And tot of rum to send him warm to sleep +In draughty dug-out frowsty with the fumes +Of coke, and full of snoring, weary men. + +He pushed another bag along the top, +Craning his body outward; then a flare +Gave one white glimpse of No Man's Land and wire; +And as he dropped his head the instant split +His startled life with lead, and all went out. + + +STAND-TO: GOOD FRIDAY MORNING + +I'd been on duty from two till four. +I went and stared at the dug-out door. +Down in the frowst I heard them snore. +"Stand-to!" Somebody grunted and swore. + Dawn was misty; the skies were still; + Larks were singing, discordant, shrill; + _They_ seemed happy; but _I_ felt ill. +Deep in water I splashed my way +Up the trench to our bogged front line. +Rain had fallen the whole damned night. +O Jesus, send me a wound to-day, +And I'll believe in Your bread and wine, +And get my bloody old sins washed white! + + +"IN THE PINK" + +So Davies wrote: "This leaves me in the pink." +Then scrawled his name: "Your loving sweetheart, Willie." +With crosses for a hug. He'd had a drink +Of rum and tea; and, though the barn was chilly, +For once his blood ran warm; he had pay to spend. +Winter was passing; soon the year would mend. + +He couldn't sleep that night. Stiff in the dark +He groaned and thought of Sundays at the farm, +When he'd go out as cheerful as a lark +In his best suit to wander arm-in-arm +With brown-eyed Gwen, and whisper in her ear +The simple, silly things she liked to hear. + +And then he thought: to-morrow night we trudge +Up to the trenches, and my boots are rotten. +Five miles of stodgy clay and freezing sludge, +And everything but wretchedness forgotten. +To-night he's in the pink; but soon he'll die. +And still the war goes on; _he_ don't know why. + + +THE HERO + +"Jack fell as he'd have wished," the Mother said, +And folded up the letter that she'd read. +"The Colonel writes so nicely." Something broke +In the tired voice that quavered to a choke. +She half looked up. "We mothers are so proud +Of our dead soldiers." Then her face was bowed. + +Quietly the Brother Officer went out. +He'd told the poor old dear some gallant lies +That she would nourish all her days, no doubt. +For while he coughed and mumbled, her weak eyes +Had shone with gentle triumph, brimmed with joy, +Because he'd been so brave, her glorious boy. + +He thought how "Jack," cold-footed, useless swine, +Had panicked down the trench that night the mine +Went up at Wicked Corner; how he'd tried +To get sent home; and how, at last, he died, +Blown to small bits. And no one seemed to care +Except that lonely woman with white hair. + + +BEFORE THE BATTLE + +Music of whispering trees +Hushed by the broad-winged breeze +Where shaken water gleams; +And evening radiance falling +With reedy bird-notes calling. +O bear me safe through dark, you low-voiced streams. + +I have no need to pray +That fear may pass away; +I scorn the growl and rumble of the fight +That summons me from cool +Silence of marsh and pool, +And yellow lilies islanded in light. +O river of stars and shadows, lead me through the night. + +_June 25th, 1916._ + + +THE ROAD + +The road is thronged with women; soldiers pass +And halt, but never see them; yet they're here-- +A patient crowd along the sodden grass, +Silent, worn out with waiting, sick with fear. +The road goes crawling up a long hillside, +All ruts and stones and sludge, and the emptied dregs +Of battle thrown in heaps. Here where they died +Are stretched big-bellied horses with stiff legs; +And dead men, bloody-fingered from the fight, +Stare up at caverned darkness winking white. + +You in the bomb-scorched kilt, poor sprawling Jock, +You tottered here and fell, and stumbled on, +Half dazed for want of sleep. No dream could mock +Your reeling brain with comforts lost and gone. +You did not feel her arms about your knees, +Her blind caress, her lips upon your head: +Too tired for thoughts of home and love and ease, +The road would serve you well enough for bed. + + +TWO HUNDRED YEARS AFTER + +Trudging by Corbie Ridge one winter's night, +(Unless old, hearsay memories tricked his sight), +Along the pallid edge of the quiet sky +He watched a nosing lorry grinding on, +And straggling files of men; when these were gone, +A double limber and six mules went by, +Hauling the rations up through ruts and mud +To trench-lines digged two hundred years ago. +Then darkness hid them with a rainy scud, +And soon he saw the village lights below. + +But when he'd told his tale, an old man said +That _he'd_ seen soldiers pass along that hill; +"Poor, silent things, they were the English dead +Who came to fight in France and got their fill." + + +THE DREAM + +I + +Moonlight and dew-drenched blossom, and the scent +Of summer gardens; these can bring you all +Those dreams that in the starlit silence fall: +Sweet songs are full of odours. + While I went +Last night in drizzling dusk along a lane, +I passed a squalid farm; from byre and midden +Came the rank smell that brought me once again +A dream of war that in the past was hidden. + +II + +Up a disconsolate straggling village street +I saw the tired troops trudge: I heard their feet. +The cheery Q.M.S. was there to meet +And guide our Company in.... + I watched them stumble. +Into some crazy hovel, too beat to grumble; +Saw them file inward, slipping from their backs +Rifles, equipment, packs. + +On filthy straw they sit in the gloom, each face +Bowed to patched, sodden boots they must unlace, +While the wind chills their sweat through chinks and cracks. + +III + +I'm looking at their blistered feet; young Jones +Stares up at me, mud-splashed and white and jaded; +Out of his eyes the morning light has faded. +Old soldiers with three winters in their bones +Puff their damp Woodbines, whistle, stretch their toes +_They_ can still grin at me, for each of 'em knows +That I'm as tired as they are.... + Can they guess +The secret burden that is always mine?-- +Pride in their courage; pity for their distress; +And burning bitterness +That I must take them to the accursèd Line. + +IV + +I cannot hear their voices, but I see +Dim candles in the barn: they gulp their tea, +And soon they'll sleep like logs. Ten miles away +The battle winks and thuds in blundering strife. +And I must lead them nearer, day by day, +To the foul beast of war that bludgeons life. + + +AT CARNOY + +Down in the hollow there's the whole Brigade +Camped in four groups: through twilight falling slow +I hear a sound of mouth-organs, ill-played, +And murmur of voices, gruff, confused, and low. +Crouched among thistle-tufts I've watched the glow +Of a blurred orange sunset flare and fade; +And I'm content. To-morrow we must go +To take some cursèd Wood.... O world God made! + +_July 3rd, 1916._ + + +BATTALION RELIEF + +"_Fall in! Now, get a move on!_" (Curse the rain.) +We splash away along the straggling village, +Out to the flat rich country green with June.... +And sunset flares across wet crops and tillage, +Blazing with splendour-patches. Harvest soon +Up in the Line. "_Perhaps the War'll be done +By Christmas-time. Keep smiling then, old son!_" + +Here's the Canal: it's dusk; we cross the bridge. +"_Lead on there by platoons._" The Line's a-glare +With shell-fire through the poplars; distant rattle +Of rifles and machine-guns. "_Fritz is there! +Christ, ain't it lively, Sergeant? Is't a battle?_" +More rain: the lightning blinks, and thunder rumbles. +"There's overhead artillery," some chap grumbles. + +"_What's all this mob, by the cross-road?_" (The guides).... +"_Lead on with Number One_" (And off they go.) + +"_Three-minute intervals._" ... Poor blundering files, +Sweating and blindly burdened; who's to know +If death will catch them in those two dark miles? +(More rain.) "_Lead on, Headquarters._" + (That's the lot.) +"_Who's that? O, Sergeant-major; don't get shot! +And tell me, have we won this war or not?_" + + +THE DUG-OUT + +Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled, +And one arm bent across your sullen cold +Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you, +Deep-shadow'd from the candle's guttering gold; +And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder; +Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head.... +_You are too young to fall asleep for ever; +And when you sleep you remind me of the dead._ + + +THE REAR-GUARD + +(Hindenburg Line, April 1917.) + +Groping along the tunnel, step by step, +He winked his prying torch with patching glare +From side to side, and sniffed the unwholesome air. + +Tins, boxes, bottles, shapes too vague to know, +A mirror smashed, the mattress from a bed; +And he, exploring fifty feet below +The rosy gloom of battle overhead. + +Tripping, he grabbed the wall; saw some one lie +Humped at his feet, half-hidden by a rug, +And stooped to give the sleeper's arm a tug. +"I'm looking for headquarters." No reply. +"God blast your neck!" (For days he'd had no sleep,) +"Get up and guide me through this stinking place." +Savage, he kicked a soft, unanswering heap, +And flashed his beam across the livid face +Terribly glaring up, whose eyes yet wore +Agony dying hard ten days before; +And fists of fingers clutched a blackening wound. + +Alone he staggered on until he found +Dawn's ghost that filtered down a shafted stair +To the dazed, muttering creatures underground +Who hear the boom of shells in muffled sound. +At last, with sweat of horror in his hair, +He climbed through darkness to the twilight air, +Unloading hell behind him step by step. + + +I STOOD WITH THE DEAD + +I stood with the Dead, so forsaken and still: + When dawn was grey I stood with the Dead. +And my slow heart said, "You must kill; you must kill: + Soldier, soldier, morning is red." + +On the shapes of the slain in their crumpled disgrace + I stared for a while through the thin cold rain.... +"O lad that I loved, there is rain on your face, + And your eyes are blurred and sick like the plain." + +I stood with the Dead.... They were dead; they were dead; + My heart and my head beat a march of dismay; +And gusts of the wind came dulled by the guns.... + "Fall in!" I shouted; "Fall in for your pay!" + + +SUICIDE IN TRENCHES + +I knew a simple soldier boy +Who grinned at life in empty joy, +Slept soundly through the lonesome dark, +And whistled early with the lark. + +In winter trenches, cowed and glum +With crumps and lice and lack of rum, +He put a bullet through his brain. +No one spoke of him again. + + * * * * * + +You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye +Who cheer when soldier lads march by, +Sneak home and pray you'll never know +The hell where youth and laughter go. + + +ATTACK + +At dawn the ridge emerges massed and dun +In the wild purple of the glowering sun +Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud +The menacing scarred slope; and, one by one, +Tanks creep and topple forward to the wire. +The barrage roars and lifts. Then, clumsily bowed +With bombs and guns and shovels and battle-gear, +Men jostle and climb to meet the bristling fire. +Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear, +They leave their trenches, going over the top, +While time ticks blank and busy on their wrists, +And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists, +Flounders in mud. O Jesu, make it stop! + + +COUNTER-ATTACK + +We'd gained our first objective hours before +While dawn broke like a face with blinking eyes, +Pallid, unshaved and thirsty, blind with smoke. +Things seemed all right at first. We held their line, +With bombers posted, Lewis guns well placed, +And clink of shovels deepening the shallow trench. +The place was rotten with dead; green clumsy legs +High-booted, sprawled and grovelled along the saps +And trunks, face downward in the sucking mud, +Wallowed like trodden sand-bags loosely filled; +And naked sodden buttocks, mats of hair, +Bulged, clotted heads, slept in the plastering slime. +And then the rain began,--the jolly old rain! + +A yawning soldier knelt against the bank, +Staring across the morning blear with fog; +He wondered when the Allemands would get busy; +And then, of course, they started with five-nines +Traversing, sure as fate, and never a dud. +Mute in the clamour of shells he watched them burst +Spouting dark earth and wire with gusts from hell, +While posturing giants dissolved in drifts of smoke. + +He crouched and flinched, dizzy with galloping fear, +Sick for escape,--loathing the strangled horror +And butchered, frantic gestures of the dead. + +An officer came blundering down the trench: +"Stand-to and man the fire-step!" On he went.... +Gasping and bawling, "Fire-step ... counter-attack!" +Then the haze lifted. Bombing on the right +Down the old sap: machine-guns on the left; +And stumbling figures looming out in front. +"O Christ, they're coming at us!" Bullets spat, +And he remembered his rifle ... rapid fire ... +And started blazing wildly ... then a bang +Crumpled and spun him sideways, knocked him out +To grunt and wriggle: none heeded him; he choked +And fought the flapping veils of smothering gloom, +Lost in a blurred confusion of yells and groans.... +Down, and down, and down, he sank and drowned, +Bleeding to death. The counter-attack had failed. + + + +THE EFFECT + + "The effect of our bombardment was terrific. One man told me + he had never seen so many dead before." + + _War Correspondent._ + +"_He'd never seen so many dead before._" +They sprawled in yellow daylight while he swore +And gasped and lugged his everlasting load +Of bombs along what once had been a road. +"_How peaceful are the dead._" +Who put that silly gag in some one's head? + +"_He'd never seen so many dead before._" +The lilting words danced up and down his brain, +While corpses jumped and capered in the rain. +No, no; he wouldn't count them any more.... +The dead have done with pain: +They've choked; they can't come back to life again. + +When Dick was killed last week he looked like that, +Flapping along the fire-step like a fish, +After the blazing crump had knocked him flat.... +"_How many dead? As many as ever you wish. +Don't count 'em; they're too many. +Who'll buy my nice fresh corpses, two a penny?_" + + +REMORSE + +Lost in the swamp and welter of the pit, +He flounders off the duck-boards; only he knows +Each flash and spouting crash,--each instant lit +When gloom reveals the streaming rain. He goes +Heavily, blindly on. And, while he blunders, +"Could anything be worse than this?"--he wonders, +Remembering how he saw those Germans run, +Screaming for mercy among the stumps of trees: +Green-faced, they dodged and darted: there was one +Livid with terror, clutching at his knees.... +Our chaps were sticking 'em like pigs.... "O hell!" +He thought--"there's things in war one dare not tell +Poor father sitting safe at home, who reads +Of dying heroes and their deathless deeds." + + +IN AN UNDERGROUND DRESSING-STATION + +Quietly they set their burden down: he tried +To grin; moaned; moved his head from side to side. + + * * * * * + +He gripped the stretcher; stiffened; glared; and screamed, +"O put my leg down, doctor, do!" (He'd got +A bullet in his ankle; and he'd been shot +Horribly through the guts.) The surgeon seemed +So kind and gentle, saying, above that crying, +"You _must_ keep still, my lad." But he was dying. + + +DIED OF WOUNDS + +His wet, white face and miserable eyes +Brought nurses to him more than groans and sighs: +But hoarse and low and rapid rose and fell +His troubled voice: he did the business well. + +The ward grew dark; but he was still complaining, +And calling out for "Dickie." "Curse the Wood! +It's time to go; O Christ, and what's the good?-- +We'll never take it; and it's always raining." + +I wondered where he'd been; then heard him shout, +"They snipe like hell! O Dickie, don't go out" ... +I fell asleep ... next morning he was dead; +And some Slight Wound lay smiling on his bed. + + + + +II + + +"THEY" + +The Bishop tells us: "When the boys come back +They will not be the same; for they'll have fought +In a just cause: they lead the last attack +On Anti-Christ; their comrade's blood has bought +New right to breed an honourable race. +They have challenged Death and dared him face to face." + +"We're none of us the same!" the boys reply. +"For George lost both his legs; and Bill's stone blind; +Poor Jim's shot through the lungs and like to die; +And Bert's gone syphilitic: you'll not find +A chap who's served that hasn't found _some_ change." +And the Bishop said; "The ways of God are strange!" + + +BASE DETAILS + +If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath, + I'd live with scarlet Majors at the Base, +And speed glum heroes up the line to death. + You'd see me with my puffy petulant face, +Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel, + Reading the Roll of Honour. "Poor young chap," +I'd say--"I used to know his father well; + Yes, we've lost heavily in this last scrap." +And when the war is done and youth stone dead, +I'd toddle safely home and die--in bed. + + +LAMENTATIONS + +I found him in a guard-room at the Base. +From the blind darkness I had heard his crying +And blundered in. With puzzled, patient face +A sergeant watched him; it was no good trying +To stop it; for he howled and beat his chest. +And, all because his brother had gone West, +Raved at the bleeding war; his rampant grief +Moaned, shouted, sobbed, and choked, while he was kneeling +Half-naked on the floor. In my belief +Such men have lost all patriotic feeling. + + +THE GENERAL + +"Good-morning; good-morning!" the General said +When we met him last week on our way to the Line, +Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of 'em dead, +And we're cursing his staff for incompetent swine. +"He's a cheery old card," grunted Harry to Jack +As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack. + + * * * * * + +But he did for them both by his plan of attack. + + +HOW TO DIE + +Dark clouds are smouldering into red + While down the craters morning burns. +The dying soldier shifts his head + To watch the glory that returns: +He lifts his fingers toward the skies + Where holy brightness breaks in flame; +Radiance reflected in his eyes, + And on his lips a whispered name. + +You'd think, to hear some people talk, + That lads go West with sobs and curses, +And sullen faces white as chalk, + Hankering for wreaths and tombs and hearses. +But they've been taught the way to do it + Like Christian soldiers; not with haste +And shuddering groans; but passing through it + With due regard for decent taste. + + +EDITORIAL IMPRESSION + +He seemed so certain "all was going well," +As he discussed the glorious time he'd had +While visiting the trenches. + "One can tell +You've gathered big impressions!" grinned the lad +Who'd been severely wounded in the back +In some wiped-out impossible Attack. +"Impressions? Yes, most vivid! I am writing +A little book called _Europe on the Rack_, +Based on notes made while witnessing the fighting. +I hope I've caught the feeling of 'the Line,' +And the amazing spirit of the troops. +By Jove, those flying-chaps of ours are fine! +I watched one daring beggar looping loops, +Soaring and diving like some bird of prey. +And through it all I felt that splendour shine +Which makes us win." + The soldier sipped his wine. +"Ah, yes, but it's the Press that leads the way!" + + +FIGHT TO A FINISH + +The boys came back. Bands played and flags were flying, + And Yellow-Pressmen thronged the sunlit street +To cheer the soldiers who'd refrained from dying, + And hear the music of returning feet. +"Of all the thrills and ardours War has brought, +This moment is the finest." (So they thought.) + +Snapping their bayonets on to charge the mob, + Grim Fusiliers broke ranks with glint of steel. +At last the boys had found a cushy job. + + * * * * * + + I heard the Yellow-Pressmen grunt and squeal; +And with my trusty bombers turned and went +To clear those Junkers out of Parliament. + + +ATROCITIES + +You told me, in your drunken-boasting mood, +How once you butchered prisoners. That was good! +I'm sure you felt no pity while they stood +Patient and cowed and scared, as prisoners should. + +How did you do them in? Come, don't be shy: +You know I love to hear how Germans die, +Downstairs in dug-outs. "Camerad!" they cry; +Then squeal like stoats when bombs begin to fly. + + * * * * * + +And you? I know your record. You went sick +When orders looked unwholesome: then, with trick +And lie, you wangled home. And here you are, +Still talking big and boozing in a bar. + + +THE FATHERS + +Snug at the club two fathers sat, +Gross, goggle-eyed, and full of chat. +One of them said: "My eldest lad +Writes cheery letters from Bagdad. +But Arthur's getting all the fun +At Arras with his nine-inch gun." + +"Yes," wheezed the other, "that's the luck! +My boy's quite broken-hearted, stuck +In England training all this year. +Still, if there's truth in what we hear, +The Huns intend to ask for more + Before they bolt across the Rhine." +I watched them toddle through the door-- + These impotent old friends of mine. + + +"BLIGHTERS" + +The house is crammed: tier beyond tier they grin +And cackle at the Show, while prancing ranks +Of harlots shrill the chorus, drunk with din; +"We're sure the Kaiser loves the dear old Tanks!" + +I'd like to see a Tank come down the stalls, +Lurching to rag-time tunes, or "Home, sweet Home,"-- +And there'd be no more jokes in Music-halls +To mock the riddled corpses round Bapaume. + + +GLORY OF WOMEN + +You love us when we're heroes, home on leave, +Or wounded in a mentionable place. +You worship decorations; you believe +That chivalry redeems the war's disgrace. +You make us shells. You listen with delight, +By tales of dirt and danger fondly thrilled. +You crown our distant ardours while we fight, +And mourn our laurelled memories when we're killed. + +You can't believe that British troops "retire" +When hell's last horror breaks them, and they run, +Trampling the terrible corpses--blind with blood. +_O German mother dreaming by the fire, +While you are knitting socks to send your son +His face is trodden deeper in the mud._ + + +THEIR FRAILTY + +He's got a Blighty wound. He's safe; and then + War's fine and bold and bright. +She can forget the doomed and prisoned men + Who agonize and fight. + +He's back in France. She loathes the listless strain + And peril of his plight. +Beseeching Heaven to send him home again, + She prays for peace each night. + +Husbands and sons and lovers; everywhere + They die; War bleeds us white. +Mothers and wives and sweethearts,--they don't care + So long as He's all right. + + +DOES IT MATTER? + +Does it matter?--losing your legs?... +For people will always be kind, +And you need not show that you mind +When the others come in after football +To gobble their muffins and eggs. + +Does it matter?--losing your sight?... +There's such splendid work for the blind; +And people will always be kind, +As you sit on the terrace remembering +And turning your face to the light. + +Do they matter?--those dreams from the pit?... +You can drink and forget and be glad, +And people won't say that you're mad; +For they'll know that you've fought for your country, +And no one will worry a bit. + + +SURVIVORS + +No doubt they'll soon get well; the shock and strain +Have caused their stammering, disconnected talk. +Of course they're "longing to go out again,"-- +These boys with old, scared faces, learning to walk, +They'll soon forget their haunted nights; their cowed +Subjection to the ghosts of friends who died,-- +Their dreams that drip with murder; and they'll be proud +Of glorious war that shatter'd all their pride.... +Men who went out to battle, grim and glad; +Children, with eyes that hate you, broken and mad. + +CRAIGLOCKHART, +_Oct. 1917._ + + +JOY-BELLS + +Ring your sweet bells; but let them be farewells + To the green-vista'd gladness of the past +That changed us into soldiers; swing your bells + To a joyful chime; but let it be the last. + +What means this metal in windy belfries hung + When guns are all our need? Dissolve these bells +Whose tones are tuned for peace: with martial tongue + Let them cry doom and storm the sun with shells. + +Bells are like fierce-browed prelates who proclaim + That "if our Lord returned He'd fight for us." +So let our bells and bishops do the same, + Shoulder to shoulder with the motor-bus. + + +ARMS AND THE MAN + +Young Croesus went to pay his call +On Colonel Sawbones, Caxton Hall: +And, though his wound was healed and mended, +He hoped he'd get his leave extended. + +The waiting-room was dark and bare. +He eyed a neat-framed notice there +Above the fireplace hung to show +Disabled heroes where to go +For arms and legs; with scale of price, +And words of dignified advice +How officers could get them free. + +Elbow or shoulder, hip or knee,-- +Two arms, two legs, though all were lost, +They'd be restored him free of cost. + +Then a Girl-Guide looked in to say, +"Will Captain Croesus come this way?" + + +WHEN I'M AMONG A BLAZE OF LIGHTS ... + +When I'm among a blaze of lights, +With tawdry music and cigars +And women dawdling through delights, +And officers at cocktail bars,-- +Sometimes I think of garden nights +And elm trees nodding at the stars. + +I dream of a small firelit room +With yellow candles burning straight, +And glowing pictures in the gloom, +And kindly books that hold me late. +Of things like these I love to think +When I can never be alone: +Then some one says, "Another drink?"-- +And turns my living heart to stone. + + +THE KISS + +To these I turn, in these I trust; +Brother Lead and Sister Steel. +To his blind power I make appeal; +I guard her beauty clean from rust. + +He spins and burns and loves the air, +And splits a skull to win my praise; +But up the nobly marching days +She glitters naked, cold and fair. + +Sweet Sister, grant your soldier this; +That in good fury he may feel +The body where he sets his heel +Quail from your downward darting kiss. + + +THE TOMBSTONE-MAKER + +He primmed his loose red mouth, and leaned his head +Against a sorrowing angel's breast, and said: +"You'd think so much bereavement would have made +Unusual big demands upon my trade. +The War comes cruel hard on some poor folk-- +Unless the fighting stops I'll soon be broke." + +He eyed the Cemetery across the road-- +"There's scores of bodies out abroad, this while, +That should be here by rights; they little know'd +How they'd get buried in such wretched style." + +I told him, with a sympathetic grin, +That Germans boil dead soldiers down for fat; +And he was horrified. "What shameful sin! +O sir, that Christian men should come to that!" + + +THE ONE-LEGGED MAN + +Propped on a stick he viewed the August weald; +Squat orchard trees and oasts with painted cowls; +A homely, tangled hedge, a corn-stooked field, +With sound of barking dogs and farmyard fowls. + +And he'd come home again to find it more +Desirable than ever it was before. +How right it seemed that he should reach the span +Of comfortable years allowed to man! + +Splendid to eat and sleep and choose a wife, +Safe with his wound, a citizen of life. +He hobbled blithely through the garden gate, +And thought; "Thank God they had to amputate!" + + +RETURN OF THE HEROES + + _A lady watches from the crowd, + Enthusiastic, flushed, and proud._ + +"Oh! there's Sir Henry Dudster! Such a splendid leader! +How pleased he looks! What rows of ribbons on his tunic! +Such dignity.... Saluting.... (_Wave your flag ... now, Freda!_)... +Yes, dear, I saw a Prussian General once,--at Munich. + +"Here's the next carriage!... Jack was once in Leggit's Corps; +That's him!... I think the stout one is Sir Godfrey Stoomer. +They _must_ feel sad to know they can't win any more +Great victories!... Aren't they glorious men?... so full of humour!" + + + + +III + + +TWELVE MONTHS AFTER + +Hullo! here's my platoon, the lot I had last year. +"The War'll be over soon." + "What 'opes?" + "No bloody fear!" +Then, "Number Seven, 'shun! All present and correct." +They're standing in the sun, impassive and erect. +Young Gibson with his grin; and Morgan, tired and white; +Jordan, who's out to win a D.C.M. some night: +And Hughes that's keen on wiring; and Davies ('79), +Who always must be firing at the Boche front line. + + * * * * * + +"Old soldiers never die; they simply fide a-why!" +That's what they used to sing along the roads last spring; +That's what they used to say before the push began; +That's where they are to-day, knocked over to a man. + + +TO ANY DEAD OFFICER + +Well, how are things in Heaven? I wish you'd say, + Because I'd like to know that you're all right. +Tell me, have you found everlasting day, + Or been sucked in by everlasting night? +For when I shut my eyes your face shows plain; + I hear you make some cheery old remark-- +I can rebuild you in my brain, + Though you've gone out patrolling in the dark. + +You hated tours of trenches; you were proud + Of nothing more than having good years to spend; +Longed to get home and join the careless crowd + Of chaps who work in peace with Time for friend. +That's all washed out now. You're beyond the wire: + No earthly chance can send you crawling back; +You've finished with machine-gun fire-- + Knocked over in a hopeless dud-attack. + +Somehow I always thought you'd get done in, + Because you were so desperate keen to live: +You were all out to try and save your skin, + Well knowing how much the world had got to give. +You joked at shells and talked the usual "shop," + Stuck to your dirty job and did it fine: +With "Jesus Christ! when _will_ it stop? + Three years.... It's hell unless we break their line." + +So when they told me you'd been left for dead + I wouldn't believe them, feeling it _must_ be true. +Next week the bloody Roll of Honour said + "Wounded and missing"--(That's the thing to do +When lads are left in shell-holes dying slow, + With nothing but blank sky and wounds that ache, +Moaning for water till they know + It's night, and then it's not worth while to wake!) + + * * * * * + +Good-bye, old lad! Remember me to God, + And tell Him that our Politicians swear +They won't give in till Prussian Rule's been trod + Under the Heel of England.... Are you there?... + +Yes ... and the War won't end for at least two years; +But we've got stacks of men ... I'm blind with tears, + Staring into the dark. Cheero! +I wish they'd killed you in a decent show. + + +SICK LEAVE + +When I'm asleep, dreaming and lulled and warm,-- +They come, the homeless ones, the noiseless dead. +While the dim charging breakers of the storm +Bellow and drone and rumble overhead, +Out of the gloom they gather about my bed. +They whisper to my heart; their thoughts are mine. +"Why are you here with all your watches ended? +From Ypres to Frise we sought you in the Line." +In bitter safety I awake, unfriended; +And while the dawn begins with slashing rain +I think of the Battalion in the mud. +"When are you going out to them again? +Are they not still your brothers through our blood?" + + +BANISHMENT + +I am banished from the patient men who fight. +They smote my heart to pity, built my pride. +Shoulder to aching shoulder, side by side, +They trudged away from life's broad wealds of light. +Their wrongs were mine; and ever in my sight +They went arrayed in honour. But they died,-- +Not one by one: and mutinous I cried +To those who sent them out into the night. + +The darkness tells how vainly I have striven +To free them from the pit where they must dwell +In outcast gloom convulsed and jagged and riven +By grappling guns. Love drove me to rebel. +Love drives me back to grope with them through hell; +And in their tortured eyes I stand forgiven. + + +AUTUMN + +October's bellowing anger breaks and cleaves +The bronzed battalions of the stricken wood +In whose lament I hear a voice that grieves +For battle's fruitless harvest, and the feud +Of outraged men. Their lives are like the leaves +Scattered in flocks of ruin, tossed and blown +Along the westering furnace flaring red. +O martyred youth and manhood overthrown, +The burden of your wrongs is on my head. + + +REPRESSION OF WAR EXPERIENCE + +Now light the candles; one; two; there's a moth; +What silly beggars they are to blunder in +And scorch their wings with glory, liquid flame-- +No, no, not that,--it's bad to think of war, +When thoughts you've gagged all day come back to scare you; +And it's been proved that soldiers don't go mad +Unless they lose control of ugly thoughts +That drive them out to jabber among the trees. + +Now light your pipe; look, what a steady hand. +Draw a deep breath; stop thinking; count fifteen, +And you're as right as rain.... Why won't it rain?... +I wish there'd be a thunder-storm to-night, +With bucketsful of water to sluice the dark, +And make the roses hang their dripping heads. + +Books; what a jolly company they are, +Standing so quiet and patient on their shelves, +Dressed in dim brown, and black, and white, and green +And every kind of colour. Which will you read? +Come on; O _do_ read something; they're so wise. +I tell you all the wisdom of the world +Is waiting for you on those shelves; and yet +You sit and gnaw your nails, and let your pipe out, +And listen to the silence: on the ceiling +There's one big, dizzy moth that bumps and flutters; +And in the breathless air outside the house +The garden waits for something that delays. +There must be crowds of ghosts among the trees,-- +Not people killed in battle,--they're in France,-- +But horrible shapes in shrouds--old men who died +Slow, natural deaths,--old men with ugly souls, +Who wore their bodies out with nasty sins. + + * * * * * + +You're quiet and peaceful, summering safe at home; +You'd never think there was a bloody war on!... +O yes, you would ... why, you can hear the guns. +Hark! Thud, thud, thud,--quite soft ... they never cease-- +Those whispering guns--O Christ, I want to go out +And screech at them to stop--I'm going crazy; +I'm going stark, staring mad because of the guns. + + +TOGETHER + +Splashing along the boggy woods all day, +And over brambled hedge and holding clay, +I shall not think of him: +But when the watery fields grow brown and dim, +And hounds have lost their fox, and horses tire, +I know that he'll be with me on my way +Home through the darkness to the evening fire. + +He's jumped each stile along the glistening lanes; +His hand will be upon the mud-soaked reins; +Hearing the saddle creak, +He'll wonder if the frost will come next week. +I shall forget him in the morning light; +And while we gallop on he will not speak: +But at the stable-door he'll say good-night. + + +THE HAWTHORN TREE + +Not much to me is yonder lane + Where I go every day; +But when there's been a shower of rain + And hedge-birds whistle gay, +I know my lad that's out in France + With fearsome things to see +Would give his eyes for just one glance + At our white hawthorn tree. + + * * * * * + +Not much to me is yonder lane + Where _he_ so longs to tread; +But when there's been a shower of rain +I think I'll never weep again + Until I've heard he's dead. + + +CONCERT PARTY + +(EGYPTIAN BASE CAMP) + +They are gathering round ... +Out of the twilight; over the grey-blue sand, +Shoals of low-jargoning men drift inward to the sound,-- +The jangle and throb of a piano ... tum-ti-tum ... +Drawn by a lamp, they come +Out of the glimmering lines of their tents, over the shuffling sand. + +O sing us the songs, the songs of our own land, +You warbling ladies in white. +Dimness conceals the hunger in our faces, +This wall of faces risen out of the night, +These eyes that keep their memories of the places +So long beyond their sight. + +Jaded and gay, the ladies sing; and the chap in brown +Tilts his grey hat; jaunty and lean and pale, +He rattles the keys ... some actor-bloke from town ... + +"_God send you home_"; and then "_A long, long trail_"; +"_I hear you catting me_"; and "_Dixieland_" ... +Sing slowly ... now the chorus ... one by one +We hear them, drink them; till the concert's done. +Silent, I watch the shadowy mass of soldiers stand. +Silent, they drift away, over the glimmering sand. + +KANTARA, +_April, 1918._ + + +NIGHT ON THE CONVOY + +(ALEXANDRIA-MARSEILLES) + +Out in the blustering darkness, on the deck +A gleam of stars looks down. Long blurs of black, +The lean Destroyers, level with our track, +Plunging and stealing, watch the perilous way +Through backward racing seas and caverns of chill spray. + +One sentry by the davits, in the gloom +Stands mute; the boat heaves onward through the night. +Shrouded is every chink of cabined light: +And sluiced by floundering waves that hiss and boom +And crash like guns, the troop-ship shudders ... doom. + +Now something at my feet stirs with a sigh; +And slowly growing used to groping dark, +I know that the hurricane-deck, down all its length, +Is heaped and spread with lads in sprawling strength,-- +Blanketed soldiers sleeping. In the stark +Danger of life at war, they lie so still, +All prostrate and defenceless, head by head ... +And I remember Arras, and that hill +Where dumb with pain I stumbled among the dead. + + * * * * * + +We are going home. The troop-ship, in a thrill +Of fiery-chamber'd anguish, throbs and rolls. +We are going home ... victims ... three thousand souls. + +_May, 1918._ + + +A LETTER HOME + +(To Robert Graves) + +I + +Here I'm sitting in the gloom +Of my quiet attic room. +France goes rolling all around, +Fledged with forest May has crowned. +And I puff my pipe, calm-hearted, +Thinking how the fighting started, +Wondering when we'll ever end it, +Back to Hell with Kaiser send it, +Gag the noise, pack up and go, +Clockwork soldiers in a row. +I've got better things to do +Than to waste my time on you. + +II + +Robert, when I drowse to-night, +Skirting lawns of sleep to chase +Shifting dreams in mazy light, +Somewhere then I'll see your face +Turning back to bid me follow +Where I wag my arms and hollo, +Over hedges hasting after +Crooked smile and baffling laughter, +Running tireless, floating, leaping, +Down your web-hung woods and valleys, +Garden glooms and hornbeam alleys, +Where the glowworm stars are peeping, +Till I find you, quiet as stone +On a hill-top all alone, +Staring outward, gravely pondering +Jumbled leagues of hillock-wandering. + +III + +You and I have walked together +In the starving winter weather. +We've been glad because we knew +Time's too short and friends are few. +We've been sad because we missed +One whose yellow head was kissed +By the gods, who thought about him +Till they couldn't do without him. +Now he's here again; I've seen +Soldier David dressed in green, +Standing in a wood that swings +To the madrigal he sings. +He's come back, all mirth and glory, +Like the prince in a fairy story. +Winter called him far away; +Blossoms bring him home with May. + +IV + +Well, I know you'll swear it's true +That you found him decked in blue +Striding up through morning-land +With a cloud on either hand. +Out in Wales, you'll say, he marches +Arm-in-arm with oaks and larches; +Hides all night in hilly nooks, +Laughs at dawn in tumbling brooks. +Yet, it's certain, here he teaches +Outpost-schemes to groups of beeches. +And I'm sure, as here I stand, +That he shines through every land, +That he sings in every place +Where we're thinking of his face. + +V + +Robert, there's a war in France; +Everywhere men bang and blunder, +Sweat and swear and worship Chance, +Creep and blink through cannon thunder. +Rifles crack and bullets flick, +Sing and hum like hornet-swarms. +Bones are smashed and buried quick. +Yet, through stunning battle storms. +All the while I watch the spark +Lit to guide me; for I know +Dreams will triumph, though the dark +Scowls above me where I go. +_You_ can hear me; _you_ can mingle +Radiant folly with my jingle, +War's a joke for me and you +While we know such dreams are true! + + +RECONCILIATION + +When you are standing at your hero's grave, +Or near some homeless village where he died, +Remember, through your heart's rekindling pride, +The German soldiers who were loyal and brave. + +Men fought like brutes; and hideous things were done: +And you have nourished hatred, harsh and blind. +But in that Golgotha perhaps you'll find +The mothers of the men who killed your son. + +_November, 1918._ + + +MEMORIAL TABLET + +(GREAT WAR) + +Squire nagged and bullied till I went to fight +(Under Lord Derby's scheme). I died in hell-- +(They called it Passchendaele); my wound was slight, +And I was hobbling back, and then a shell +Burst slick upon the duck-boards; so I fell +Into the bottomless mud, and lost the light. + +In sermon-time, while Squire is in his pew, +He gives my gilded name a thoughtful stare; +For though low down upon the list, I'm there: +"In proud and glorious memory"--that's my due. +Two bleeding years I fought in France for Squire; +I suffered anguish that he's never guessed; +Once I came home on leave; and then went west. +What greater glory could a man desire? + + +THE DEATH-BED + +He drowsed and was aware of silence heaped +Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls; +Aqueous like floating rays of amber light, +Soaring and quivering in the wings of sleep,-- +Silence and safety; and his mortal shore +Lipped by the inward, moonless waves of death. + +Some one was holding water to his mouth. +He swallowed, unresisting; moaned and dropped +Through crimson gloom to darkness; and forgot +The opiate throb and ache that was his wound. +Water--calm, sliding green above the weir; +Water--a sky-lit alley for his boat, +Bird-voiced, and bordered with reflected flowers +And shaken hues of summer: drifting down, +He dipped contented oars, and sighed, and slept. + +Night, with a gust of wind, was in the ward, +Blowing the curtain to a glimmering curve. +Night. He was blind; he could not see the stars +Glinting among the wraiths of wandering cloud; +Queer blots of colour, purple, scarlet, green, +Flickered and faded in his drowning eyes. + +Rain; he could hear it rustling through the dark; +Fragrance and passionless music woven as one; +Warm rain on drooping roses; pattering showers +That soak the woods; not the harsh rain that sweeps +Behind the thunder, but a trickling peace +Gently and slowly washing life away. + + * * * * * + +He stirred, shifting his body; then the pain +Leaped like a prowling beast, and gripped and tore +His groping dreams with grinding claws and fangs. +But some one was beside him; soon he lay +Shuddering because that evil thing had passed. +And Death, who'd stepped toward him, paused and stared. + +Light many lamps and gather round his bed. +Lend him your eyes, warm blood, and will to live. +Speak to him; rouse him; you may save him yet. +He's young; he hated war; how should he die +When cruel old campaigners win safe through? + +But Death replied: "I choose him." So he went, +And there was silence in the summer night; +Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep. +Then, far away, the thudding of the guns. + + +AFTERMATH + +_Have you forgotten yet?..._ +For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days, +Like traffic checked awhile at the crossing of city ways: +And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow +Like clouds in the lit heavens of life; and you're a man reprieved to go, +Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare. +_But the past is just the same,--and War's a bloody game,... +Have you forgotten yet?... +Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you'll never forget._ + +Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz,-- +The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets? +Do you remember the rats; and the stench +Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench,-- +And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain? +Do you ever stop and ask, "Is it all going to happen again?" + +Do you remember that hour of din before the attack,-- +And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then +As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men? +Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back +With dying eyes and lolling heads,--those ashen-grey +Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay? + +_Have you forgotten yet?... +Look up, and swear by the green of the Spring that you'll never forget._ + + +SONG-BOOKS OF THE WAR + +In fifty years, when peace outshines +Remembrance of the battle lines, +Adventurous lads will sigh and cast +Proud looks upon the plundered past. +On summer morn or winter's night, +Their hearts will kindle for the fight, +Reading a snatch of soldier-song, +Savage and jaunty, fierce and strong; +And through the angry marching rhymes +Of blind regret and haggard mirth, +They'll envy us the dazzling times +When sacrifice absolved our earth. + +Some ancient man with silver locks +Will lift his weary face to say: +"War was a fiend who stopped our clocks +Although we met him grim and gay." +And then he'll speak of Haig's last drive, +Marvelling that any came alive +Out of the shambles that men built +And smashed, to cleanse the world of guilt. +But the boys, with grin and sidelong glance, +Will think, "Poor grandad's day is done." +And dream of lads who fought in France +And lived in time to share the fun. + + +EVERYONE SANG + +Everyone suddenly burst out singing; +And I was filled with such delight +As prisoned birds must find in freedom +Winging wildly across the white +Orchards and dark green fields; on; on; and out of sight. + +Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted, +And beauty came like the setting sun. +My heart was shaken with tears and horror +Drifted away ... O but every one +Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done. + +_April, 1919._ + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon +by Siegfried Sassoon + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14757 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..54a9e7e --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #14757 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14757) diff --git a/old/14757-8.txt b/old/14757-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4a7f074 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14757-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2218 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon, by Siegfried Sassoon + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon + +Author: Siegfried Sassoon + +Release Date: January 22, 2005 [EBook #14757] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WAR POEMS OF SIEGFRIED SASSOON *** + + + + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Linda Cantoni, and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + + +THE WAR POEMS OF SIEGFRIED SASSOON + + +1919 + +LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN + + + + +Dans la trêve désolée de cette matinée, ces hommes qui avaient été +tenaillés par la fatigue, fouettés par la pluie, bouleversés par toute +une nuit de tonnerre, ces rescapés des volcans et de l'inondation +entrevoyaient à quel point la guerre, aussi hideuse au moral qu'au +physique, non seulement viole le bon sens, avilit les grandes idées, +commande tous les crimes--mais ils se rappelaient combien elle avait +développé en eux et autour d'eux tous les mauvais instincts sans en +excepter un seul; la méchanceté jusqu'au sadisme, l'égoïsme jusqu'à la +férocité, le besoin de jouir jusqu'à la folie. + +HENRI BARBUSSE. + +(_Le Feu._) + + + + +NOTE + + +Of these 64 poems, 12 are now published for the first time. The +remainder are selected from two previous volumes. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +I + +PRELUDE: THE TROOPS 11 + +DREAMERS 13 + +THE REDEEMER 14 + +TRENCH DUTY 16 + +WIRERS 17 + +BREAK OF DAY 18 + +A WORKING PARTY 21 + +STAND-TO: GOOD FRIDAY MORNING 24 + +"IN THE PINK" 25 + +THE HERO 26 + +BEFORE THE BATTLE 27 + +THE ROAD 28 + +TWO HUNDRED YEARS AFTER 29 + +THE DREAM 30 + +AT CARNOY 32 + +BATTALION RELIEF 33 + +THE DUG-OUT 35 + +THE REAR-GUARD 36 + +I STOOD WITH THE DEAD 38 + +SUICIDE IN TRENCHES 39 + +ATTACK 40 + +COUNTER-ATTACK 41 + +THE EFFECT 43 + +REMORSE 44 + +IN AN UNDERGROUND DRESSING-STATION 45 + +DIED OF WOUNDS 46 + + +II + +"THEY" 47 + +BASE DETAILS 48 + +LAMENTATIONS 49 + +THE GENERAL 50 + +HOW TO DIE 51 + +EDITORIAL IMPRESSIONS 52 + +FIGHT TO A FINISH 53 + +ATROCITIES 54 + +THE FATHERS 55 + +"BLIGHTERS" 56 + +GLORY OF WOMEN 57 + +THEIR FRAILTY 58 + +DOES IT MATTER? 59 + +SURVIVORS 60 + +JOY-BELLS 61 + +ARMS AND THE MAN 62 + +WHEN I'M AMONG A BLAZE OF LIGHTS 63 + +THE KISS 64 + +THE TOMBSTONE-MAKER 65 + +THE ONE-LEGGED MAN 66 + +RETURN OF THE HEROES 67 + + +III + +TWELVE MONTHS AFTER 68 + +TO ANY DEAD OFFICER 69 + +SICK LEAVE 72 + +BANISHMENT 73 + +AUTUMN 74 + +REPRESSION OF WAR EXPERIENCE 75 + +TOGETHER 77 + +THE HAWTHORN TREE 78 + +CONCERT PARTY 79 + +NIGHT ON THE CONVOY 81 + +A LETTER HOME 83 + +RECONCILIATION 87 + +MEMORIAL TABLET (GREAT WAR) 88 + +THE DEATH-BED 89 + +AFTERMATH 91 + +SONG-BOOKS OF THE WAR 93 + +EVERYONE SANG 95 + + + + +I + + +PRELUDE: THE TROOPS + +Dim, gradual thinning of the shapeless gloom +Shudders to drizzling daybreak that reveals +Disconsolate men who stamp their sodden boots +And turn dulled, sunken faces to the sky +Haggard and hopeless. They, who have beaten down +The stale despair of night, must now renew +Their desolation in the truce of dawn, +Murdering the livid hours that grope for peace. + +Yet these, who cling to life with stubborn hands, +Can grin through storms of death and find a gap +In the clawed, cruel tangles of his defence. +They march from safety, and the bird-sung joy +Of grass-green thickets, to the land where all +Is ruin, and nothing blossoms but the sky +That hastens over them where they endure +Sad, smoking, flat horizons, reeking woods, +And foundered trench-lines volleying doom for doom. + +O my brave brown companions, when your souls +Flock silently away, and the eyeless dead, +Shame the wild beast of battle on the ridge, +Death will stand grieving in that field of war +Since your unvanquished hardihood is spent. +And through some mooned Valhalla there will pass +Battalions and battalions, scarred from hell; +The unreturning army that was youth; +The legions who have suffered and are dust. + + +DREAMERS + +Soldiers are citizens of death's gray land, + Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows. +In the great hour of destiny they stand, + Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows. +Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win + Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives. +Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin + They think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives. + +I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats, + And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain, +Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats, + And mocked by hopeless longing to regain +Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats, + And going to the office in the train. + + +THE REDEEMER + +Darkness: the rain sluiced down; the mire was deep; +It was past twelve on a mid-winter night, +When peaceful folk in beds lay snug asleep: +There, with much work to do before the light, +We lugged our clay-sucked boots as best we might +Along the trench; sometimes a bullet sang, +And droning shells burst with a hollow bang; +We were soaked, chilled and wretched, every one. +Darkness: the distant wink of a huge gun. + +I turned in the black ditch, loathing the storm; +A rocket fizzed and burned with blanching flare, +And lit the face of what had been a form +Floundering in mirk. He stood before me there; +I say that he was Christ; stiff in the glare, +And leaning forward from his burdening task, +Both arms supporting it; his eyes on mine +Stared from the woeful head that seemed a mask +Of mortal pain in Hell's unholy shine. + +No thorny crown, only a woollen cap +He wore--an English soldier, white and strong, +Who loved his time like any simple chap, +Good days of work and sport and homely song; +Now he has learned that nights are very long, +And dawn a watching of the windowed sky. +But to the end, unjudging, he'll endure +Horror and pain, not uncontent to die +That Lancaster on Lune may stand secure. + +He faced me, reeling in his weariness, +Shouldering his load of planks, so hard to bear. +I say that he was Christ, who wrought to bless +All groping things with freedom bright as air, +And with His mercy washed and made them fair. +Then the flame sank, and all grew black as pitch, +While we began to struggle along the ditch; +And some one flung his burden in the muck, +Mumbling: "O Christ Almighty, now I'm stuck!" + + +TRENCH DUTY + +Shaken from sleep, and numbed and scarce awake, +Out in the trench with three hours' watch to take, +I blunder through the splashing mirk; and then +Hear the gruff muttering voices of the men +Crouching in cabins candle-chinked with light. +Hark! There's the big bombardment on our right +Rumbling and bumping; and the dark's a glare +Of flickering horror in the sectors where +We raid the Boche; men waiting, stiff and chilled, +Or crawling on their bellies through the wire. +"What? Stretcher-bearers wanted? Some one killed?" +Five minutes ago I heard a sniper fire: +Why did he do it?... Starlight overhead-- +Blank stars. I'm wide-awake; and some chap's dead. + + +WIRERS + +"Pass it along, the wiring party's going out"-- +And yawning sentries mumble, "Wirers going out." +Unravelling; twisting; hammering stakes with muffled thud, +They toil with stealthy haste and anger in their blood. + +The Boche sends up a flare. Black forms stand rigid there, +Stock-still like posts; then darkness, and the clumsy ghosts +Stride hither and thither, whispering, tripped by clutching snare +Of snags and tangles. + Ghastly dawn with vaporous coasts +Gleams desolate along the sky, night's misery ended. + +Young Hughes was badly hit; I heard him carried away, +Moaning at every lurch; no doubt he'll die to-day. +But _we_ can say the front-line wire's been safely mended. + + +BREAK OF DAY + +There seemed a smell of autumn in the air +At the bleak end of night; he shivered there +In a dank, musty dug-out where he lay, +Legs wrapped in sand-bags,--lumps of chalk and clay +Spattering his face. Dry-mouthed, he thought, "To-day +We start the damned attack; and, Lord knows why, +Zero's at nine; how bloody if I'm done in +Under the freedom of that morning sky!" +And then he coughed and dozed, cursing the din. + +Was it the ghost of autumn in that smell +Of underground, or God's blank heart grown kind, +That sent a happy dream to him in hell?-- +Where men are crushed like clods, and crawl to find +Some crater for their wretchedness; who lie +In outcast immolation, doomed to die +Far from clean things or any hope of cheer, +Cowed anger in their eyes, till darkness brims +And roars into their heads, and they can hear +Old childish talk, and tags of foolish hymns. + +He sniffs the chilly air; (his dreaming starts). +He's riding in a dusty Sussex lane +In quiet September; slowly night departs; +And he's a living soul, absolved from pain. +Beyond the brambled fences where he goes +Are glimmering fields with harvest piled in sheaves, +And tree-tops dark against the stars grown pale; +Then, clear and shrill, a distant farm-cock crows; +And there's a wall of mist along the vale +Where willows shake their watery-sounding leaves. +He gazes on it all, and scarce believes +That earth is telling its old peaceful tale; +He thanks the blessed world that he was born.... +Then, far away, a lonely note of the horn. + +They're drawing the Big Wood! Unlatch the gate, +And set Golumpus going on the grass: +_He_ knows the corner where it's best to wait +And hear the crashing woodland chorus pass; +The corner where old foxes make their track +To the Long Spinney; that's the place to be. +The bracken shakes below an ivied tree, +And then a cub looks out; and "Tally-o-back!" +He bawls, and swings his thong with volleying crack,-- +All the clean thrill of autumn in his blood, +And hunting surging through him like a flood +In joyous welcome from the untroubled past; +While the war drifts away, forgotten at last. + +Now a red, sleepy sun above the rim +Of twilight stares along the quiet weald, +And the kind, simple country shines revealed +In solitudes of peace, no longer dim. +The old horse lifts his face and thanks the light, +Then stretches down his head to crop the green. +All things that he has loved are in his sight; +The places where his happiness has been +Are in his eyes, his heart, and they are good. + + * * * * * + +Hark! there's the horn: they're drawing the Big Wood. + + +A WORKING PARTY + +Three hours ago he blundered up the trench, +Sliding and poising, groping with his boots; +Sometimes he tripped and lurched against the walls +With hands that pawed the sodden bags of chalk. +He couldn't see the man who walked in front; +Only he heard the drum and rattle of feet +Stepping along the trench-boards,--often splashing +Wretchedly where the sludge was ankle-deep. + +Voices would grunt, "Keep to your right,--make way!" +When squeezing past the men from the front-line: +White faces peered, puffing a point of red; +Candles and braziers glinted through the chinks +And curtain-flaps of dug-outs; then the gloom +Swallowed his sense of sight; he stooped and swore +Because a sagging wire had caught his neck. +A flare went up; the shining whiteness spread +And flickered upward, showing nimble rats, +And mounds of glimmering sand-bags, bleached with rain; +Then the slow, silver moment died in dark. + +The wind came posting by with chilly gusts +And buffeting at corners, piping thin +And dreary through the crannies; rifle-shots +Would split and crack and sing along the night, +And shells came calmly through the drizzling air +To burst with hollow bang below the hill. + +Three hours ago he stumbled up the trench; +Now he will never walk that road again: +He must be carried back, a jolting lump +Beyond all need of tenderness and care; +A nine-stone corpse with nothing more to do. + +He was a young man with a meagre wife +And two pale children in a Midland town; +He showed the photograph to all his mates; +And they considered him a decent chap +Who did his work and hadn't much to say, +And always laughed at other people's jokes +Because he hadn't any of his own. + +That night, when he was busy at his job +Of piling bags along the parapet, +He thought how slow time went, stamping his feet, +And blowing on his fingers, pinched with cold. + +He thought of getting back by half-past twelve, +And tot of rum to send him warm to sleep +In draughty dug-out frowsty with the fumes +Of coke, and full of snoring, weary men. + +He pushed another bag along the top, +Craning his body outward; then a flare +Gave one white glimpse of No Man's Land and wire; +And as he dropped his head the instant split +His startled life with lead, and all went out. + + +STAND-TO: GOOD FRIDAY MORNING + +I'd been on duty from two till four. +I went and stared at the dug-out door. +Down in the frowst I heard them snore. +"Stand-to!" Somebody grunted and swore. + Dawn was misty; the skies were still; + Larks were singing, discordant, shrill; + _They_ seemed happy; but _I_ felt ill. +Deep in water I splashed my way +Up the trench to our bogged front line. +Rain had fallen the whole damned night. +O Jesus, send me a wound to-day, +And I'll believe in Your bread and wine, +And get my bloody old sins washed white! + + +"IN THE PINK" + +So Davies wrote: "This leaves me in the pink." +Then scrawled his name: "Your loving sweetheart, Willie." +With crosses for a hug. He'd had a drink +Of rum and tea; and, though the barn was chilly, +For once his blood ran warm; he had pay to spend. +Winter was passing; soon the year would mend. + +He couldn't sleep that night. Stiff in the dark +He groaned and thought of Sundays at the farm, +When he'd go out as cheerful as a lark +In his best suit to wander arm-in-arm +With brown-eyed Gwen, and whisper in her ear +The simple, silly things she liked to hear. + +And then he thought: to-morrow night we trudge +Up to the trenches, and my boots are rotten. +Five miles of stodgy clay and freezing sludge, +And everything but wretchedness forgotten. +To-night he's in the pink; but soon he'll die. +And still the war goes on; _he_ don't know why. + + +THE HERO + +"Jack fell as he'd have wished," the Mother said, +And folded up the letter that she'd read. +"The Colonel writes so nicely." Something broke +In the tired voice that quavered to a choke. +She half looked up. "We mothers are so proud +Of our dead soldiers." Then her face was bowed. + +Quietly the Brother Officer went out. +He'd told the poor old dear some gallant lies +That she would nourish all her days, no doubt. +For while he coughed and mumbled, her weak eyes +Had shone with gentle triumph, brimmed with joy, +Because he'd been so brave, her glorious boy. + +He thought how "Jack," cold-footed, useless swine, +Had panicked down the trench that night the mine +Went up at Wicked Corner; how he'd tried +To get sent home; and how, at last, he died, +Blown to small bits. And no one seemed to care +Except that lonely woman with white hair. + + +BEFORE THE BATTLE + +Music of whispering trees +Hushed by the broad-winged breeze +Where shaken water gleams; +And evening radiance falling +With reedy bird-notes calling. +O bear me safe through dark, you low-voiced streams. + +I have no need to pray +That fear may pass away; +I scorn the growl and rumble of the fight +That summons me from cool +Silence of marsh and pool, +And yellow lilies islanded in light. +O river of stars and shadows, lead me through the night. + +_June 25th, 1916._ + + +THE ROAD + +The road is thronged with women; soldiers pass +And halt, but never see them; yet they're here-- +A patient crowd along the sodden grass, +Silent, worn out with waiting, sick with fear. +The road goes crawling up a long hillside, +All ruts and stones and sludge, and the emptied dregs +Of battle thrown in heaps. Here where they died +Are stretched big-bellied horses with stiff legs; +And dead men, bloody-fingered from the fight, +Stare up at caverned darkness winking white. + +You in the bomb-scorched kilt, poor sprawling Jock, +You tottered here and fell, and stumbled on, +Half dazed for want of sleep. No dream could mock +Your reeling brain with comforts lost and gone. +You did not feel her arms about your knees, +Her blind caress, her lips upon your head: +Too tired for thoughts of home and love and ease, +The road would serve you well enough for bed. + + +TWO HUNDRED YEARS AFTER + +Trudging by Corbie Ridge one winter's night, +(Unless old, hearsay memories tricked his sight), +Along the pallid edge of the quiet sky +He watched a nosing lorry grinding on, +And straggling files of men; when these were gone, +A double limber and six mules went by, +Hauling the rations up through ruts and mud +To trench-lines digged two hundred years ago. +Then darkness hid them with a rainy scud, +And soon he saw the village lights below. + +But when he'd told his tale, an old man said +That _he'd_ seen soldiers pass along that hill; +"Poor, silent things, they were the English dead +Who came to fight in France and got their fill." + + +THE DREAM + +I + +Moonlight and dew-drenched blossom, and the scent +Of summer gardens; these can bring you all +Those dreams that in the starlit silence fall: +Sweet songs are full of odours. + While I went +Last night in drizzling dusk along a lane, +I passed a squalid farm; from byre and midden +Came the rank smell that brought me once again +A dream of war that in the past was hidden. + +II + +Up a disconsolate straggling village street +I saw the tired troops trudge: I heard their feet. +The cheery Q.M.S. was there to meet +And guide our Company in.... + I watched them stumble. +Into some crazy hovel, too beat to grumble; +Saw them file inward, slipping from their backs +Rifles, equipment, packs. + +On filthy straw they sit in the gloom, each face +Bowed to patched, sodden boots they must unlace, +While the wind chills their sweat through chinks and cracks. + +III + +I'm looking at their blistered feet; young Jones +Stares up at me, mud-splashed and white and jaded; +Out of his eyes the morning light has faded. +Old soldiers with three winters in their bones +Puff their damp Woodbines, whistle, stretch their toes +_They_ can still grin at me, for each of 'em knows +That I'm as tired as they are.... + Can they guess +The secret burden that is always mine?-- +Pride in their courage; pity for their distress; +And burning bitterness +That I must take them to the accursèd Line. + +IV + +I cannot hear their voices, but I see +Dim candles in the barn: they gulp their tea, +And soon they'll sleep like logs. Ten miles away +The battle winks and thuds in blundering strife. +And I must lead them nearer, day by day, +To the foul beast of war that bludgeons life. + + +AT CARNOY + +Down in the hollow there's the whole Brigade +Camped in four groups: through twilight falling slow +I hear a sound of mouth-organs, ill-played, +And murmur of voices, gruff, confused, and low. +Crouched among thistle-tufts I've watched the glow +Of a blurred orange sunset flare and fade; +And I'm content. To-morrow we must go +To take some cursèd Wood.... O world God made! + +_July 3rd, 1916._ + + +BATTALION RELIEF + +"_Fall in! Now, get a move on!_" (Curse the rain.) +We splash away along the straggling village, +Out to the flat rich country green with June.... +And sunset flares across wet crops and tillage, +Blazing with splendour-patches. Harvest soon +Up in the Line. "_Perhaps the War'll be done +By Christmas-time. Keep smiling then, old son!_" + +Here's the Canal: it's dusk; we cross the bridge. +"_Lead on there by platoons._" The Line's a-glare +With shell-fire through the poplars; distant rattle +Of rifles and machine-guns. "_Fritz is there! +Christ, ain't it lively, Sergeant? Is't a battle?_" +More rain: the lightning blinks, and thunder rumbles. +"There's overhead artillery," some chap grumbles. + +"_What's all this mob, by the cross-road?_" (The guides).... +"_Lead on with Number One_" (And off they go.) + +"_Three-minute intervals._" ... Poor blundering files, +Sweating and blindly burdened; who's to know +If death will catch them in those two dark miles? +(More rain.) "_Lead on, Headquarters._" + (That's the lot.) +"_Who's that? O, Sergeant-major; don't get shot! +And tell me, have we won this war or not?_" + + +THE DUG-OUT + +Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled, +And one arm bent across your sullen cold +Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you, +Deep-shadow'd from the candle's guttering gold; +And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder; +Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head.... +_You are too young to fall asleep for ever; +And when you sleep you remind me of the dead._ + + +THE REAR-GUARD + +(Hindenburg Line, April 1917.) + +Groping along the tunnel, step by step, +He winked his prying torch with patching glare +From side to side, and sniffed the unwholesome air. + +Tins, boxes, bottles, shapes too vague to know, +A mirror smashed, the mattress from a bed; +And he, exploring fifty feet below +The rosy gloom of battle overhead. + +Tripping, he grabbed the wall; saw some one lie +Humped at his feet, half-hidden by a rug, +And stooped to give the sleeper's arm a tug. +"I'm looking for headquarters." No reply. +"God blast your neck!" (For days he'd had no sleep,) +"Get up and guide me through this stinking place." +Savage, he kicked a soft, unanswering heap, +And flashed his beam across the livid face +Terribly glaring up, whose eyes yet wore +Agony dying hard ten days before; +And fists of fingers clutched a blackening wound. + +Alone he staggered on until he found +Dawn's ghost that filtered down a shafted stair +To the dazed, muttering creatures underground +Who hear the boom of shells in muffled sound. +At last, with sweat of horror in his hair, +He climbed through darkness to the twilight air, +Unloading hell behind him step by step. + + +I STOOD WITH THE DEAD + +I stood with the Dead, so forsaken and still: + When dawn was grey I stood with the Dead. +And my slow heart said, "You must kill; you must kill: + Soldier, soldier, morning is red." + +On the shapes of the slain in their crumpled disgrace + I stared for a while through the thin cold rain.... +"O lad that I loved, there is rain on your face, + And your eyes are blurred and sick like the plain." + +I stood with the Dead.... They were dead; they were dead; + My heart and my head beat a march of dismay; +And gusts of the wind came dulled by the guns.... + "Fall in!" I shouted; "Fall in for your pay!" + + +SUICIDE IN TRENCHES + +I knew a simple soldier boy +Who grinned at life in empty joy, +Slept soundly through the lonesome dark, +And whistled early with the lark. + +In winter trenches, cowed and glum +With crumps and lice and lack of rum, +He put a bullet through his brain. +No one spoke of him again. + + * * * * * + +You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye +Who cheer when soldier lads march by, +Sneak home and pray you'll never know +The hell where youth and laughter go. + + +ATTACK + +At dawn the ridge emerges massed and dun +In the wild purple of the glowering sun +Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud +The menacing scarred slope; and, one by one, +Tanks creep and topple forward to the wire. +The barrage roars and lifts. Then, clumsily bowed +With bombs and guns and shovels and battle-gear, +Men jostle and climb to meet the bristling fire. +Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear, +They leave their trenches, going over the top, +While time ticks blank and busy on their wrists, +And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists, +Flounders in mud. O Jesu, make it stop! + + +COUNTER-ATTACK + +We'd gained our first objective hours before +While dawn broke like a face with blinking eyes, +Pallid, unshaved and thirsty, blind with smoke. +Things seemed all right at first. We held their line, +With bombers posted, Lewis guns well placed, +And clink of shovels deepening the shallow trench. +The place was rotten with dead; green clumsy legs +High-booted, sprawled and grovelled along the saps +And trunks, face downward in the sucking mud, +Wallowed like trodden sand-bags loosely filled; +And naked sodden buttocks, mats of hair, +Bulged, clotted heads, slept in the plastering slime. +And then the rain began,--the jolly old rain! + +A yawning soldier knelt against the bank, +Staring across the morning blear with fog; +He wondered when the Allemands would get busy; +And then, of course, they started with five-nines +Traversing, sure as fate, and never a dud. +Mute in the clamour of shells he watched them burst +Spouting dark earth and wire with gusts from hell, +While posturing giants dissolved in drifts of smoke. + +He crouched and flinched, dizzy with galloping fear, +Sick for escape,--loathing the strangled horror +And butchered, frantic gestures of the dead. + +An officer came blundering down the trench: +"Stand-to and man the fire-step!" On he went.... +Gasping and bawling, "Fire-step ... counter-attack!" +Then the haze lifted. Bombing on the right +Down the old sap: machine-guns on the left; +And stumbling figures looming out in front. +"O Christ, they're coming at us!" Bullets spat, +And he remembered his rifle ... rapid fire ... +And started blazing wildly ... then a bang +Crumpled and spun him sideways, knocked him out +To grunt and wriggle: none heeded him; he choked +And fought the flapping veils of smothering gloom, +Lost in a blurred confusion of yells and groans.... +Down, and down, and down, he sank and drowned, +Bleeding to death. The counter-attack had failed. + + + +THE EFFECT + + "The effect of our bombardment was terrific. One man told me + he had never seen so many dead before." + + _War Correspondent._ + +"_He'd never seen so many dead before._" +They sprawled in yellow daylight while he swore +And gasped and lugged his everlasting load +Of bombs along what once had been a road. +"_How peaceful are the dead._" +Who put that silly gag in some one's head? + +"_He'd never seen so many dead before._" +The lilting words danced up and down his brain, +While corpses jumped and capered in the rain. +No, no; he wouldn't count them any more.... +The dead have done with pain: +They've choked; they can't come back to life again. + +When Dick was killed last week he looked like that, +Flapping along the fire-step like a fish, +After the blazing crump had knocked him flat.... +"_How many dead? As many as ever you wish. +Don't count 'em; they're too many. +Who'll buy my nice fresh corpses, two a penny?_" + + +REMORSE + +Lost in the swamp and welter of the pit, +He flounders off the duck-boards; only he knows +Each flash and spouting crash,--each instant lit +When gloom reveals the streaming rain. He goes +Heavily, blindly on. And, while he blunders, +"Could anything be worse than this?"--he wonders, +Remembering how he saw those Germans run, +Screaming for mercy among the stumps of trees: +Green-faced, they dodged and darted: there was one +Livid with terror, clutching at his knees.... +Our chaps were sticking 'em like pigs.... "O hell!" +He thought--"there's things in war one dare not tell +Poor father sitting safe at home, who reads +Of dying heroes and their deathless deeds." + + +IN AN UNDERGROUND DRESSING-STATION + +Quietly they set their burden down: he tried +To grin; moaned; moved his head from side to side. + + * * * * * + +He gripped the stretcher; stiffened; glared; and screamed, +"O put my leg down, doctor, do!" (He'd got +A bullet in his ankle; and he'd been shot +Horribly through the guts.) The surgeon seemed +So kind and gentle, saying, above that crying, +"You _must_ keep still, my lad." But he was dying. + + +DIED OF WOUNDS + +His wet, white face and miserable eyes +Brought nurses to him more than groans and sighs: +But hoarse and low and rapid rose and fell +His troubled voice: he did the business well. + +The ward grew dark; but he was still complaining, +And calling out for "Dickie." "Curse the Wood! +It's time to go; O Christ, and what's the good?-- +We'll never take it; and it's always raining." + +I wondered where he'd been; then heard him shout, +"They snipe like hell! O Dickie, don't go out" ... +I fell asleep ... next morning he was dead; +And some Slight Wound lay smiling on his bed. + + + + +II + + +"THEY" + +The Bishop tells us: "When the boys come back +They will not be the same; for they'll have fought +In a just cause: they lead the last attack +On Anti-Christ; their comrade's blood has bought +New right to breed an honourable race. +They have challenged Death and dared him face to face." + +"We're none of us the same!" the boys reply. +"For George lost both his legs; and Bill's stone blind; +Poor Jim's shot through the lungs and like to die; +And Bert's gone syphilitic: you'll not find +A chap who's served that hasn't found _some_ change." +And the Bishop said; "The ways of God are strange!" + + +BASE DETAILS + +If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath, + I'd live with scarlet Majors at the Base, +And speed glum heroes up the line to death. + You'd see me with my puffy petulant face, +Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel, + Reading the Roll of Honour. "Poor young chap," +I'd say--"I used to know his father well; + Yes, we've lost heavily in this last scrap." +And when the war is done and youth stone dead, +I'd toddle safely home and die--in bed. + + +LAMENTATIONS + +I found him in a guard-room at the Base. +From the blind darkness I had heard his crying +And blundered in. With puzzled, patient face +A sergeant watched him; it was no good trying +To stop it; for he howled and beat his chest. +And, all because his brother had gone West, +Raved at the bleeding war; his rampant grief +Moaned, shouted, sobbed, and choked, while he was kneeling +Half-naked on the floor. In my belief +Such men have lost all patriotic feeling. + + +THE GENERAL + +"Good-morning; good-morning!" the General said +When we met him last week on our way to the Line, +Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of 'em dead, +And we're cursing his staff for incompetent swine. +"He's a cheery old card," grunted Harry to Jack +As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack. + + * * * * * + +But he did for them both by his plan of attack. + + +HOW TO DIE + +Dark clouds are smouldering into red + While down the craters morning burns. +The dying soldier shifts his head + To watch the glory that returns: +He lifts his fingers toward the skies + Where holy brightness breaks in flame; +Radiance reflected in his eyes, + And on his lips a whispered name. + +You'd think, to hear some people talk, + That lads go West with sobs and curses, +And sullen faces white as chalk, + Hankering for wreaths and tombs and hearses. +But they've been taught the way to do it + Like Christian soldiers; not with haste +And shuddering groans; but passing through it + With due regard for decent taste. + + +EDITORIAL IMPRESSION + +He seemed so certain "all was going well," +As he discussed the glorious time he'd had +While visiting the trenches. + "One can tell +You've gathered big impressions!" grinned the lad +Who'd been severely wounded in the back +In some wiped-out impossible Attack. +"Impressions? Yes, most vivid! I am writing +A little book called _Europe on the Rack_, +Based on notes made while witnessing the fighting. +I hope I've caught the feeling of 'the Line,' +And the amazing spirit of the troops. +By Jove, those flying-chaps of ours are fine! +I watched one daring beggar looping loops, +Soaring and diving like some bird of prey. +And through it all I felt that splendour shine +Which makes us win." + The soldier sipped his wine. +"Ah, yes, but it's the Press that leads the way!" + + +FIGHT TO A FINISH + +The boys came back. Bands played and flags were flying, + And Yellow-Pressmen thronged the sunlit street +To cheer the soldiers who'd refrained from dying, + And hear the music of returning feet. +"Of all the thrills and ardours War has brought, +This moment is the finest." (So they thought.) + +Snapping their bayonets on to charge the mob, + Grim Fusiliers broke ranks with glint of steel. +At last the boys had found a cushy job. + + * * * * * + + I heard the Yellow-Pressmen grunt and squeal; +And with my trusty bombers turned and went +To clear those Junkers out of Parliament. + + +ATROCITIES + +You told me, in your drunken-boasting mood, +How once you butchered prisoners. That was good! +I'm sure you felt no pity while they stood +Patient and cowed and scared, as prisoners should. + +How did you do them in? Come, don't be shy: +You know I love to hear how Germans die, +Downstairs in dug-outs. "Camerad!" they cry; +Then squeal like stoats when bombs begin to fly. + + * * * * * + +And you? I know your record. You went sick +When orders looked unwholesome: then, with trick +And lie, you wangled home. And here you are, +Still talking big and boozing in a bar. + + +THE FATHERS + +Snug at the club two fathers sat, +Gross, goggle-eyed, and full of chat. +One of them said: "My eldest lad +Writes cheery letters from Bagdad. +But Arthur's getting all the fun +At Arras with his nine-inch gun." + +"Yes," wheezed the other, "that's the luck! +My boy's quite broken-hearted, stuck +In England training all this year. +Still, if there's truth in what we hear, +The Huns intend to ask for more + Before they bolt across the Rhine." +I watched them toddle through the door-- + These impotent old friends of mine. + + +"BLIGHTERS" + +The house is crammed: tier beyond tier they grin +And cackle at the Show, while prancing ranks +Of harlots shrill the chorus, drunk with din; +"We're sure the Kaiser loves the dear old Tanks!" + +I'd like to see a Tank come down the stalls, +Lurching to rag-time tunes, or "Home, sweet Home,"-- +And there'd be no more jokes in Music-halls +To mock the riddled corpses round Bapaume. + + +GLORY OF WOMEN + +You love us when we're heroes, home on leave, +Or wounded in a mentionable place. +You worship decorations; you believe +That chivalry redeems the war's disgrace. +You make us shells. You listen with delight, +By tales of dirt and danger fondly thrilled. +You crown our distant ardours while we fight, +And mourn our laurelled memories when we're killed. + +You can't believe that British troops "retire" +When hell's last horror breaks them, and they run, +Trampling the terrible corpses--blind with blood. +_O German mother dreaming by the fire, +While you are knitting socks to send your son +His face is trodden deeper in the mud._ + + +THEIR FRAILTY + +He's got a Blighty wound. He's safe; and then + War's fine and bold and bright. +She can forget the doomed and prisoned men + Who agonize and fight. + +He's back in France. She loathes the listless strain + And peril of his plight. +Beseeching Heaven to send him home again, + She prays for peace each night. + +Husbands and sons and lovers; everywhere + They die; War bleeds us white. +Mothers and wives and sweethearts,--they don't care + So long as He's all right. + + +DOES IT MATTER? + +Does it matter?--losing your legs?... +For people will always be kind, +And you need not show that you mind +When the others come in after football +To gobble their muffins and eggs. + +Does it matter?--losing your sight?... +There's such splendid work for the blind; +And people will always be kind, +As you sit on the terrace remembering +And turning your face to the light. + +Do they matter?--those dreams from the pit?... +You can drink and forget and be glad, +And people won't say that you're mad; +For they'll know that you've fought for your country, +And no one will worry a bit. + + +SURVIVORS + +No doubt they'll soon get well; the shock and strain +Have caused their stammering, disconnected talk. +Of course they're "longing to go out again,"-- +These boys with old, scared faces, learning to walk, +They'll soon forget their haunted nights; their cowed +Subjection to the ghosts of friends who died,-- +Their dreams that drip with murder; and they'll be proud +Of glorious war that shatter'd all their pride.... +Men who went out to battle, grim and glad; +Children, with eyes that hate you, broken and mad. + +CRAIGLOCKHART, +_Oct. 1917._ + + +JOY-BELLS + +Ring your sweet bells; but let them be farewells + To the green-vista'd gladness of the past +That changed us into soldiers; swing your bells + To a joyful chime; but let it be the last. + +What means this metal in windy belfries hung + When guns are all our need? Dissolve these bells +Whose tones are tuned for peace: with martial tongue + Let them cry doom and storm the sun with shells. + +Bells are like fierce-browed prelates who proclaim + That "if our Lord returned He'd fight for us." +So let our bells and bishops do the same, + Shoulder to shoulder with the motor-bus. + + +ARMS AND THE MAN + +Young Croesus went to pay his call +On Colonel Sawbones, Caxton Hall: +And, though his wound was healed and mended, +He hoped he'd get his leave extended. + +The waiting-room was dark and bare. +He eyed a neat-framed notice there +Above the fireplace hung to show +Disabled heroes where to go +For arms and legs; with scale of price, +And words of dignified advice +How officers could get them free. + +Elbow or shoulder, hip or knee,-- +Two arms, two legs, though all were lost, +They'd be restored him free of cost. + +Then a Girl-Guide looked in to say, +"Will Captain Croesus come this way?" + + +WHEN I'M AMONG A BLAZE OF LIGHTS ... + +When I'm among a blaze of lights, +With tawdry music and cigars +And women dawdling through delights, +And officers at cocktail bars,-- +Sometimes I think of garden nights +And elm trees nodding at the stars. + +I dream of a small firelit room +With yellow candles burning straight, +And glowing pictures in the gloom, +And kindly books that hold me late. +Of things like these I love to think +When I can never be alone: +Then some one says, "Another drink?"-- +And turns my living heart to stone. + + +THE KISS + +To these I turn, in these I trust; +Brother Lead and Sister Steel. +To his blind power I make appeal; +I guard her beauty clean from rust. + +He spins and burns and loves the air, +And splits a skull to win my praise; +But up the nobly marching days +She glitters naked, cold and fair. + +Sweet Sister, grant your soldier this; +That in good fury he may feel +The body where he sets his heel +Quail from your downward darting kiss. + + +THE TOMBSTONE-MAKER + +He primmed his loose red mouth, and leaned his head +Against a sorrowing angel's breast, and said: +"You'd think so much bereavement would have made +Unusual big demands upon my trade. +The War comes cruel hard on some poor folk-- +Unless the fighting stops I'll soon be broke." + +He eyed the Cemetery across the road-- +"There's scores of bodies out abroad, this while, +That should be here by rights; they little know'd +How they'd get buried in such wretched style." + +I told him, with a sympathetic grin, +That Germans boil dead soldiers down for fat; +And he was horrified. "What shameful sin! +O sir, that Christian men should come to that!" + + +THE ONE-LEGGED MAN + +Propped on a stick he viewed the August weald; +Squat orchard trees and oasts with painted cowls; +A homely, tangled hedge, a corn-stooked field, +With sound of barking dogs and farmyard fowls. + +And he'd come home again to find it more +Desirable than ever it was before. +How right it seemed that he should reach the span +Of comfortable years allowed to man! + +Splendid to eat and sleep and choose a wife, +Safe with his wound, a citizen of life. +He hobbled blithely through the garden gate, +And thought; "Thank God they had to amputate!" + + +RETURN OF THE HEROES + + _A lady watches from the crowd, + Enthusiastic, flushed, and proud._ + +"Oh! there's Sir Henry Dudster! Such a splendid leader! +How pleased he looks! What rows of ribbons on his tunic! +Such dignity.... Saluting.... (_Wave your flag ... now, Freda!_)... +Yes, dear, I saw a Prussian General once,--at Munich. + +"Here's the next carriage!... Jack was once in Leggit's Corps; +That's him!... I think the stout one is Sir Godfrey Stoomer. +They _must_ feel sad to know they can't win any more +Great victories!... Aren't they glorious men?... so full of humour!" + + + + +III + + +TWELVE MONTHS AFTER + +Hullo! here's my platoon, the lot I had last year. +"The War'll be over soon." + "What 'opes?" + "No bloody fear!" +Then, "Number Seven, 'shun! All present and correct." +They're standing in the sun, impassive and erect. +Young Gibson with his grin; and Morgan, tired and white; +Jordan, who's out to win a D.C.M. some night: +And Hughes that's keen on wiring; and Davies ('79), +Who always must be firing at the Boche front line. + + * * * * * + +"Old soldiers never die; they simply fide a-why!" +That's what they used to sing along the roads last spring; +That's what they used to say before the push began; +That's where they are to-day, knocked over to a man. + + +TO ANY DEAD OFFICER + +Well, how are things in Heaven? I wish you'd say, + Because I'd like to know that you're all right. +Tell me, have you found everlasting day, + Or been sucked in by everlasting night? +For when I shut my eyes your face shows plain; + I hear you make some cheery old remark-- +I can rebuild you in my brain, + Though you've gone out patrolling in the dark. + +You hated tours of trenches; you were proud + Of nothing more than having good years to spend; +Longed to get home and join the careless crowd + Of chaps who work in peace with Time for friend. +That's all washed out now. You're beyond the wire: + No earthly chance can send you crawling back; +You've finished with machine-gun fire-- + Knocked over in a hopeless dud-attack. + +Somehow I always thought you'd get done in, + Because you were so desperate keen to live: +You were all out to try and save your skin, + Well knowing how much the world had got to give. +You joked at shells and talked the usual "shop," + Stuck to your dirty job and did it fine: +With "Jesus Christ! when _will_ it stop? + Three years.... It's hell unless we break their line." + +So when they told me you'd been left for dead + I wouldn't believe them, feeling it _must_ be true. +Next week the bloody Roll of Honour said + "Wounded and missing"--(That's the thing to do +When lads are left in shell-holes dying slow, + With nothing but blank sky and wounds that ache, +Moaning for water till they know + It's night, and then it's not worth while to wake!) + + * * * * * + +Good-bye, old lad! Remember me to God, + And tell Him that our Politicians swear +They won't give in till Prussian Rule's been trod + Under the Heel of England.... Are you there?... + +Yes ... and the War won't end for at least two years; +But we've got stacks of men ... I'm blind with tears, + Staring into the dark. Cheero! +I wish they'd killed you in a decent show. + + +SICK LEAVE + +When I'm asleep, dreaming and lulled and warm,-- +They come, the homeless ones, the noiseless dead. +While the dim charging breakers of the storm +Bellow and drone and rumble overhead, +Out of the gloom they gather about my bed. +They whisper to my heart; their thoughts are mine. +"Why are you here with all your watches ended? +From Ypres to Frise we sought you in the Line." +In bitter safety I awake, unfriended; +And while the dawn begins with slashing rain +I think of the Battalion in the mud. +"When are you going out to them again? +Are they not still your brothers through our blood?" + + +BANISHMENT + +I am banished from the patient men who fight. +They smote my heart to pity, built my pride. +Shoulder to aching shoulder, side by side, +They trudged away from life's broad wealds of light. +Their wrongs were mine; and ever in my sight +They went arrayed in honour. But they died,-- +Not one by one: and mutinous I cried +To those who sent them out into the night. + +The darkness tells how vainly I have striven +To free them from the pit where they must dwell +In outcast gloom convulsed and jagged and riven +By grappling guns. Love drove me to rebel. +Love drives me back to grope with them through hell; +And in their tortured eyes I stand forgiven. + + +AUTUMN + +October's bellowing anger breaks and cleaves +The bronzed battalions of the stricken wood +In whose lament I hear a voice that grieves +For battle's fruitless harvest, and the feud +Of outraged men. Their lives are like the leaves +Scattered in flocks of ruin, tossed and blown +Along the westering furnace flaring red. +O martyred youth and manhood overthrown, +The burden of your wrongs is on my head. + + +REPRESSION OF WAR EXPERIENCE + +Now light the candles; one; two; there's a moth; +What silly beggars they are to blunder in +And scorch their wings with glory, liquid flame-- +No, no, not that,--it's bad to think of war, +When thoughts you've gagged all day come back to scare you; +And it's been proved that soldiers don't go mad +Unless they lose control of ugly thoughts +That drive them out to jabber among the trees. + +Now light your pipe; look, what a steady hand. +Draw a deep breath; stop thinking; count fifteen, +And you're as right as rain.... Why won't it rain?... +I wish there'd be a thunder-storm to-night, +With bucketsful of water to sluice the dark, +And make the roses hang their dripping heads. + +Books; what a jolly company they are, +Standing so quiet and patient on their shelves, +Dressed in dim brown, and black, and white, and green +And every kind of colour. Which will you read? +Come on; O _do_ read something; they're so wise. +I tell you all the wisdom of the world +Is waiting for you on those shelves; and yet +You sit and gnaw your nails, and let your pipe out, +And listen to the silence: on the ceiling +There's one big, dizzy moth that bumps and flutters; +And in the breathless air outside the house +The garden waits for something that delays. +There must be crowds of ghosts among the trees,-- +Not people killed in battle,--they're in France,-- +But horrible shapes in shrouds--old men who died +Slow, natural deaths,--old men with ugly souls, +Who wore their bodies out with nasty sins. + + * * * * * + +You're quiet and peaceful, summering safe at home; +You'd never think there was a bloody war on!... +O yes, you would ... why, you can hear the guns. +Hark! Thud, thud, thud,--quite soft ... they never cease-- +Those whispering guns--O Christ, I want to go out +And screech at them to stop--I'm going crazy; +I'm going stark, staring mad because of the guns. + + +TOGETHER + +Splashing along the boggy woods all day, +And over brambled hedge and holding clay, +I shall not think of him: +But when the watery fields grow brown and dim, +And hounds have lost their fox, and horses tire, +I know that he'll be with me on my way +Home through the darkness to the evening fire. + +He's jumped each stile along the glistening lanes; +His hand will be upon the mud-soaked reins; +Hearing the saddle creak, +He'll wonder if the frost will come next week. +I shall forget him in the morning light; +And while we gallop on he will not speak: +But at the stable-door he'll say good-night. + + +THE HAWTHORN TREE + +Not much to me is yonder lane + Where I go every day; +But when there's been a shower of rain + And hedge-birds whistle gay, +I know my lad that's out in France + With fearsome things to see +Would give his eyes for just one glance + At our white hawthorn tree. + + * * * * * + +Not much to me is yonder lane + Where _he_ so longs to tread; +But when there's been a shower of rain +I think I'll never weep again + Until I've heard he's dead. + + +CONCERT PARTY + +(EGYPTIAN BASE CAMP) + +They are gathering round ... +Out of the twilight; over the grey-blue sand, +Shoals of low-jargoning men drift inward to the sound,-- +The jangle and throb of a piano ... tum-ti-tum ... +Drawn by a lamp, they come +Out of the glimmering lines of their tents, over the shuffling sand. + +O sing us the songs, the songs of our own land, +You warbling ladies in white. +Dimness conceals the hunger in our faces, +This wall of faces risen out of the night, +These eyes that keep their memories of the places +So long beyond their sight. + +Jaded and gay, the ladies sing; and the chap in brown +Tilts his grey hat; jaunty and lean and pale, +He rattles the keys ... some actor-bloke from town ... + +"_God send you home_"; and then "_A long, long trail_"; +"_I hear you catting me_"; and "_Dixieland_" ... +Sing slowly ... now the chorus ... one by one +We hear them, drink them; till the concert's done. +Silent, I watch the shadowy mass of soldiers stand. +Silent, they drift away, over the glimmering sand. + +KANTARA, +_April, 1918._ + + +NIGHT ON THE CONVOY + +(ALEXANDRIA-MARSEILLES) + +Out in the blustering darkness, on the deck +A gleam of stars looks down. Long blurs of black, +The lean Destroyers, level with our track, +Plunging and stealing, watch the perilous way +Through backward racing seas and caverns of chill spray. + +One sentry by the davits, in the gloom +Stands mute; the boat heaves onward through the night. +Shrouded is every chink of cabined light: +And sluiced by floundering waves that hiss and boom +And crash like guns, the troop-ship shudders ... doom. + +Now something at my feet stirs with a sigh; +And slowly growing used to groping dark, +I know that the hurricane-deck, down all its length, +Is heaped and spread with lads in sprawling strength,-- +Blanketed soldiers sleeping. In the stark +Danger of life at war, they lie so still, +All prostrate and defenceless, head by head ... +And I remember Arras, and that hill +Where dumb with pain I stumbled among the dead. + + * * * * * + +We are going home. The troop-ship, in a thrill +Of fiery-chamber'd anguish, throbs and rolls. +We are going home ... victims ... three thousand souls. + +_May, 1918._ + + +A LETTER HOME + +(To Robert Graves) + +I + +Here I'm sitting in the gloom +Of my quiet attic room. +France goes rolling all around, +Fledged with forest May has crowned. +And I puff my pipe, calm-hearted, +Thinking how the fighting started, +Wondering when we'll ever end it, +Back to Hell with Kaiser send it, +Gag the noise, pack up and go, +Clockwork soldiers in a row. +I've got better things to do +Than to waste my time on you. + +II + +Robert, when I drowse to-night, +Skirting lawns of sleep to chase +Shifting dreams in mazy light, +Somewhere then I'll see your face +Turning back to bid me follow +Where I wag my arms and hollo, +Over hedges hasting after +Crooked smile and baffling laughter, +Running tireless, floating, leaping, +Down your web-hung woods and valleys, +Garden glooms and hornbeam alleys, +Where the glowworm stars are peeping, +Till I find you, quiet as stone +On a hill-top all alone, +Staring outward, gravely pondering +Jumbled leagues of hillock-wandering. + +III + +You and I have walked together +In the starving winter weather. +We've been glad because we knew +Time's too short and friends are few. +We've been sad because we missed +One whose yellow head was kissed +By the gods, who thought about him +Till they couldn't do without him. +Now he's here again; I've seen +Soldier David dressed in green, +Standing in a wood that swings +To the madrigal he sings. +He's come back, all mirth and glory, +Like the prince in a fairy story. +Winter called him far away; +Blossoms bring him home with May. + +IV + +Well, I know you'll swear it's true +That you found him decked in blue +Striding up through morning-land +With a cloud on either hand. +Out in Wales, you'll say, he marches +Arm-in-arm with oaks and larches; +Hides all night in hilly nooks, +Laughs at dawn in tumbling brooks. +Yet, it's certain, here he teaches +Outpost-schemes to groups of beeches. +And I'm sure, as here I stand, +That he shines through every land, +That he sings in every place +Where we're thinking of his face. + +V + +Robert, there's a war in France; +Everywhere men bang and blunder, +Sweat and swear and worship Chance, +Creep and blink through cannon thunder. +Rifles crack and bullets flick, +Sing and hum like hornet-swarms. +Bones are smashed and buried quick. +Yet, through stunning battle storms. +All the while I watch the spark +Lit to guide me; for I know +Dreams will triumph, though the dark +Scowls above me where I go. +_You_ can hear me; _you_ can mingle +Radiant folly with my jingle, +War's a joke for me and you +While we know such dreams are true! + + +RECONCILIATION + +When you are standing at your hero's grave, +Or near some homeless village where he died, +Remember, through your heart's rekindling pride, +The German soldiers who were loyal and brave. + +Men fought like brutes; and hideous things were done: +And you have nourished hatred, harsh and blind. +But in that Golgotha perhaps you'll find +The mothers of the men who killed your son. + +_November, 1918._ + + +MEMORIAL TABLET + +(GREAT WAR) + +Squire nagged and bullied till I went to fight +(Under Lord Derby's scheme). I died in hell-- +(They called it Passchendaele); my wound was slight, +And I was hobbling back, and then a shell +Burst slick upon the duck-boards; so I fell +Into the bottomless mud, and lost the light. + +In sermon-time, while Squire is in his pew, +He gives my gilded name a thoughtful stare; +For though low down upon the list, I'm there: +"In proud and glorious memory"--that's my due. +Two bleeding years I fought in France for Squire; +I suffered anguish that he's never guessed; +Once I came home on leave; and then went west. +What greater glory could a man desire? + + +THE DEATH-BED + +He drowsed and was aware of silence heaped +Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls; +Aqueous like floating rays of amber light, +Soaring and quivering in the wings of sleep,-- +Silence and safety; and his mortal shore +Lipped by the inward, moonless waves of death. + +Some one was holding water to his mouth. +He swallowed, unresisting; moaned and dropped +Through crimson gloom to darkness; and forgot +The opiate throb and ache that was his wound. +Water--calm, sliding green above the weir; +Water--a sky-lit alley for his boat, +Bird-voiced, and bordered with reflected flowers +And shaken hues of summer: drifting down, +He dipped contented oars, and sighed, and slept. + +Night, with a gust of wind, was in the ward, +Blowing the curtain to a glimmering curve. +Night. He was blind; he could not see the stars +Glinting among the wraiths of wandering cloud; +Queer blots of colour, purple, scarlet, green, +Flickered and faded in his drowning eyes. + +Rain; he could hear it rustling through the dark; +Fragrance and passionless music woven as one; +Warm rain on drooping roses; pattering showers +That soak the woods; not the harsh rain that sweeps +Behind the thunder, but a trickling peace +Gently and slowly washing life away. + + * * * * * + +He stirred, shifting his body; then the pain +Leaped like a prowling beast, and gripped and tore +His groping dreams with grinding claws and fangs. +But some one was beside him; soon he lay +Shuddering because that evil thing had passed. +And Death, who'd stepped toward him, paused and stared. + +Light many lamps and gather round his bed. +Lend him your eyes, warm blood, and will to live. +Speak to him; rouse him; you may save him yet. +He's young; he hated war; how should he die +When cruel old campaigners win safe through? + +But Death replied: "I choose him." So he went, +And there was silence in the summer night; +Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep. +Then, far away, the thudding of the guns. + + +AFTERMATH + +_Have you forgotten yet?..._ +For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days, +Like traffic checked awhile at the crossing of city ways: +And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow +Like clouds in the lit heavens of life; and you're a man reprieved to go, +Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare. +_But the past is just the same,--and War's a bloody game,... +Have you forgotten yet?... +Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you'll never forget._ + +Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz,-- +The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets? +Do you remember the rats; and the stench +Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench,-- +And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain? +Do you ever stop and ask, "Is it all going to happen again?" + +Do you remember that hour of din before the attack,-- +And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then +As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men? +Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back +With dying eyes and lolling heads,--those ashen-grey +Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay? + +_Have you forgotten yet?... +Look up, and swear by the green of the Spring that you'll never forget._ + + +SONG-BOOKS OF THE WAR + +In fifty years, when peace outshines +Remembrance of the battle lines, +Adventurous lads will sigh and cast +Proud looks upon the plundered past. +On summer morn or winter's night, +Their hearts will kindle for the fight, +Reading a snatch of soldier-song, +Savage and jaunty, fierce and strong; +And through the angry marching rhymes +Of blind regret and haggard mirth, +They'll envy us the dazzling times +When sacrifice absolved our earth. + +Some ancient man with silver locks +Will lift his weary face to say: +"War was a fiend who stopped our clocks +Although we met him grim and gay." +And then he'll speak of Haig's last drive, +Marvelling that any came alive +Out of the shambles that men built +And smashed, to cleanse the world of guilt. +But the boys, with grin and sidelong glance, +Will think, "Poor grandad's day is done." +And dream of lads who fought in France +And lived in time to share the fun. + + +EVERYONE SANG + +Everyone suddenly burst out singing; +And I was filled with such delight +As prisoned birds must find in freedom +Winging wildly across the white +Orchards and dark green fields; on; on; and out of sight. + +Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted, +And beauty came like the setting sun. +My heart was shaken with tears and horror +Drifted away ... O but every one +Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done. + +_April, 1919._ + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon +by Siegfried Sassoon + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WAR POEMS OF SIEGFRIED SASSOON *** + +***** This file should be named 14757-8.txt or 14757-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/7/5/14757/ + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Linda Cantoni, and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon + +Author: Siegfried Sassoon + +Release Date: January 22, 2005 [EBook #14757] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WAR POEMS OF SIEGFRIED SASSOON *** + + + + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Linda Cantoni, and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + + +THE WAR POEMS OF SIEGFRIED SASSOON + + +1919 + +LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN + + + + +Dans la treve desolee de cette matinee, ces hommes qui avaient ete +tenailles par la fatigue, fouettes par la pluie, bouleverses par toute +une nuit de tonnerre, ces rescapes des volcans et de l'inondation +entrevoyaient a quel point la guerre, aussi hideuse au moral qu'au +physique, non seulement viole le bon sens, avilit les grandes idees, +commande tous les crimes--mais ils se rappelaient combien elle avait +developpe en eux et autour d'eux tous les mauvais instincts sans en +excepter un seul; la mechancete jusqu'au sadisme, l'egoisme jusqu'a la +ferocite, le besoin de jouir jusqu'a la folie. + +HENRI BARBUSSE. + +(_Le Feu._) + + + + +NOTE + + +Of these 64 poems, 12 are now published for the first time. The +remainder are selected from two previous volumes. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +I + +PRELUDE: THE TROOPS 11 + +DREAMERS 13 + +THE REDEEMER 14 + +TRENCH DUTY 16 + +WIRERS 17 + +BREAK OF DAY 18 + +A WORKING PARTY 21 + +STAND-TO: GOOD FRIDAY MORNING 24 + +"IN THE PINK" 25 + +THE HERO 26 + +BEFORE THE BATTLE 27 + +THE ROAD 28 + +TWO HUNDRED YEARS AFTER 29 + +THE DREAM 30 + +AT CARNOY 32 + +BATTALION RELIEF 33 + +THE DUG-OUT 35 + +THE REAR-GUARD 36 + +I STOOD WITH THE DEAD 38 + +SUICIDE IN TRENCHES 39 + +ATTACK 40 + +COUNTER-ATTACK 41 + +THE EFFECT 43 + +REMORSE 44 + +IN AN UNDERGROUND DRESSING-STATION 45 + +DIED OF WOUNDS 46 + + +II + +"THEY" 47 + +BASE DETAILS 48 + +LAMENTATIONS 49 + +THE GENERAL 50 + +HOW TO DIE 51 + +EDITORIAL IMPRESSIONS 52 + +FIGHT TO A FINISH 53 + +ATROCITIES 54 + +THE FATHERS 55 + +"BLIGHTERS" 56 + +GLORY OF WOMEN 57 + +THEIR FRAILTY 58 + +DOES IT MATTER? 59 + +SURVIVORS 60 + +JOY-BELLS 61 + +ARMS AND THE MAN 62 + +WHEN I'M AMONG A BLAZE OF LIGHTS 63 + +THE KISS 64 + +THE TOMBSTONE-MAKER 65 + +THE ONE-LEGGED MAN 66 + +RETURN OF THE HEROES 67 + + +III + +TWELVE MONTHS AFTER 68 + +TO ANY DEAD OFFICER 69 + +SICK LEAVE 72 + +BANISHMENT 73 + +AUTUMN 74 + +REPRESSION OF WAR EXPERIENCE 75 + +TOGETHER 77 + +THE HAWTHORN TREE 78 + +CONCERT PARTY 79 + +NIGHT ON THE CONVOY 81 + +A LETTER HOME 83 + +RECONCILIATION 87 + +MEMORIAL TABLET (GREAT WAR) 88 + +THE DEATH-BED 89 + +AFTERMATH 91 + +SONG-BOOKS OF THE WAR 93 + +EVERYONE SANG 95 + + + + +I + + +PRELUDE: THE TROOPS + +Dim, gradual thinning of the shapeless gloom +Shudders to drizzling daybreak that reveals +Disconsolate men who stamp their sodden boots +And turn dulled, sunken faces to the sky +Haggard and hopeless. They, who have beaten down +The stale despair of night, must now renew +Their desolation in the truce of dawn, +Murdering the livid hours that grope for peace. + +Yet these, who cling to life with stubborn hands, +Can grin through storms of death and find a gap +In the clawed, cruel tangles of his defence. +They march from safety, and the bird-sung joy +Of grass-green thickets, to the land where all +Is ruin, and nothing blossoms but the sky +That hastens over them where they endure +Sad, smoking, flat horizons, reeking woods, +And foundered trench-lines volleying doom for doom. + +O my brave brown companions, when your souls +Flock silently away, and the eyeless dead, +Shame the wild beast of battle on the ridge, +Death will stand grieving in that field of war +Since your unvanquished hardihood is spent. +And through some mooned Valhalla there will pass +Battalions and battalions, scarred from hell; +The unreturning army that was youth; +The legions who have suffered and are dust. + + +DREAMERS + +Soldiers are citizens of death's gray land, + Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows. +In the great hour of destiny they stand, + Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows. +Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win + Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives. +Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin + They think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives. + +I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats, + And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain, +Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats, + And mocked by hopeless longing to regain +Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats, + And going to the office in the train. + + +THE REDEEMER + +Darkness: the rain sluiced down; the mire was deep; +It was past twelve on a mid-winter night, +When peaceful folk in beds lay snug asleep: +There, with much work to do before the light, +We lugged our clay-sucked boots as best we might +Along the trench; sometimes a bullet sang, +And droning shells burst with a hollow bang; +We were soaked, chilled and wretched, every one. +Darkness: the distant wink of a huge gun. + +I turned in the black ditch, loathing the storm; +A rocket fizzed and burned with blanching flare, +And lit the face of what had been a form +Floundering in mirk. He stood before me there; +I say that he was Christ; stiff in the glare, +And leaning forward from his burdening task, +Both arms supporting it; his eyes on mine +Stared from the woeful head that seemed a mask +Of mortal pain in Hell's unholy shine. + +No thorny crown, only a woollen cap +He wore--an English soldier, white and strong, +Who loved his time like any simple chap, +Good days of work and sport and homely song; +Now he has learned that nights are very long, +And dawn a watching of the windowed sky. +But to the end, unjudging, he'll endure +Horror and pain, not uncontent to die +That Lancaster on Lune may stand secure. + +He faced me, reeling in his weariness, +Shouldering his load of planks, so hard to bear. +I say that he was Christ, who wrought to bless +All groping things with freedom bright as air, +And with His mercy washed and made them fair. +Then the flame sank, and all grew black as pitch, +While we began to struggle along the ditch; +And some one flung his burden in the muck, +Mumbling: "O Christ Almighty, now I'm stuck!" + + +TRENCH DUTY + +Shaken from sleep, and numbed and scarce awake, +Out in the trench with three hours' watch to take, +I blunder through the splashing mirk; and then +Hear the gruff muttering voices of the men +Crouching in cabins candle-chinked with light. +Hark! There's the big bombardment on our right +Rumbling and bumping; and the dark's a glare +Of flickering horror in the sectors where +We raid the Boche; men waiting, stiff and chilled, +Or crawling on their bellies through the wire. +"What? Stretcher-bearers wanted? Some one killed?" +Five minutes ago I heard a sniper fire: +Why did he do it?... Starlight overhead-- +Blank stars. I'm wide-awake; and some chap's dead. + + +WIRERS + +"Pass it along, the wiring party's going out"-- +And yawning sentries mumble, "Wirers going out." +Unravelling; twisting; hammering stakes with muffled thud, +They toil with stealthy haste and anger in their blood. + +The Boche sends up a flare. Black forms stand rigid there, +Stock-still like posts; then darkness, and the clumsy ghosts +Stride hither and thither, whispering, tripped by clutching snare +Of snags and tangles. + Ghastly dawn with vaporous coasts +Gleams desolate along the sky, night's misery ended. + +Young Hughes was badly hit; I heard him carried away, +Moaning at every lurch; no doubt he'll die to-day. +But _we_ can say the front-line wire's been safely mended. + + +BREAK OF DAY + +There seemed a smell of autumn in the air +At the bleak end of night; he shivered there +In a dank, musty dug-out where he lay, +Legs wrapped in sand-bags,--lumps of chalk and clay +Spattering his face. Dry-mouthed, he thought, "To-day +We start the damned attack; and, Lord knows why, +Zero's at nine; how bloody if I'm done in +Under the freedom of that morning sky!" +And then he coughed and dozed, cursing the din. + +Was it the ghost of autumn in that smell +Of underground, or God's blank heart grown kind, +That sent a happy dream to him in hell?-- +Where men are crushed like clods, and crawl to find +Some crater for their wretchedness; who lie +In outcast immolation, doomed to die +Far from clean things or any hope of cheer, +Cowed anger in their eyes, till darkness brims +And roars into their heads, and they can hear +Old childish talk, and tags of foolish hymns. + +He sniffs the chilly air; (his dreaming starts). +He's riding in a dusty Sussex lane +In quiet September; slowly night departs; +And he's a living soul, absolved from pain. +Beyond the brambled fences where he goes +Are glimmering fields with harvest piled in sheaves, +And tree-tops dark against the stars grown pale; +Then, clear and shrill, a distant farm-cock crows; +And there's a wall of mist along the vale +Where willows shake their watery-sounding leaves. +He gazes on it all, and scarce believes +That earth is telling its old peaceful tale; +He thanks the blessed world that he was born.... +Then, far away, a lonely note of the horn. + +They're drawing the Big Wood! Unlatch the gate, +And set Golumpus going on the grass: +_He_ knows the corner where it's best to wait +And hear the crashing woodland chorus pass; +The corner where old foxes make their track +To the Long Spinney; that's the place to be. +The bracken shakes below an ivied tree, +And then a cub looks out; and "Tally-o-back!" +He bawls, and swings his thong with volleying crack,-- +All the clean thrill of autumn in his blood, +And hunting surging through him like a flood +In joyous welcome from the untroubled past; +While the war drifts away, forgotten at last. + +Now a red, sleepy sun above the rim +Of twilight stares along the quiet weald, +And the kind, simple country shines revealed +In solitudes of peace, no longer dim. +The old horse lifts his face and thanks the light, +Then stretches down his head to crop the green. +All things that he has loved are in his sight; +The places where his happiness has been +Are in his eyes, his heart, and they are good. + + * * * * * + +Hark! there's the horn: they're drawing the Big Wood. + + +A WORKING PARTY + +Three hours ago he blundered up the trench, +Sliding and poising, groping with his boots; +Sometimes he tripped and lurched against the walls +With hands that pawed the sodden bags of chalk. +He couldn't see the man who walked in front; +Only he heard the drum and rattle of feet +Stepping along the trench-boards,--often splashing +Wretchedly where the sludge was ankle-deep. + +Voices would grunt, "Keep to your right,--make way!" +When squeezing past the men from the front-line: +White faces peered, puffing a point of red; +Candles and braziers glinted through the chinks +And curtain-flaps of dug-outs; then the gloom +Swallowed his sense of sight; he stooped and swore +Because a sagging wire had caught his neck. +A flare went up; the shining whiteness spread +And flickered upward, showing nimble rats, +And mounds of glimmering sand-bags, bleached with rain; +Then the slow, silver moment died in dark. + +The wind came posting by with chilly gusts +And buffeting at corners, piping thin +And dreary through the crannies; rifle-shots +Would split and crack and sing along the night, +And shells came calmly through the drizzling air +To burst with hollow bang below the hill. + +Three hours ago he stumbled up the trench; +Now he will never walk that road again: +He must be carried back, a jolting lump +Beyond all need of tenderness and care; +A nine-stone corpse with nothing more to do. + +He was a young man with a meagre wife +And two pale children in a Midland town; +He showed the photograph to all his mates; +And they considered him a decent chap +Who did his work and hadn't much to say, +And always laughed at other people's jokes +Because he hadn't any of his own. + +That night, when he was busy at his job +Of piling bags along the parapet, +He thought how slow time went, stamping his feet, +And blowing on his fingers, pinched with cold. + +He thought of getting back by half-past twelve, +And tot of rum to send him warm to sleep +In draughty dug-out frowsty with the fumes +Of coke, and full of snoring, weary men. + +He pushed another bag along the top, +Craning his body outward; then a flare +Gave one white glimpse of No Man's Land and wire; +And as he dropped his head the instant split +His startled life with lead, and all went out. + + +STAND-TO: GOOD FRIDAY MORNING + +I'd been on duty from two till four. +I went and stared at the dug-out door. +Down in the frowst I heard them snore. +"Stand-to!" Somebody grunted and swore. + Dawn was misty; the skies were still; + Larks were singing, discordant, shrill; + _They_ seemed happy; but _I_ felt ill. +Deep in water I splashed my way +Up the trench to our bogged front line. +Rain had fallen the whole damned night. +O Jesus, send me a wound to-day, +And I'll believe in Your bread and wine, +And get my bloody old sins washed white! + + +"IN THE PINK" + +So Davies wrote: "This leaves me in the pink." +Then scrawled his name: "Your loving sweetheart, Willie." +With crosses for a hug. He'd had a drink +Of rum and tea; and, though the barn was chilly, +For once his blood ran warm; he had pay to spend. +Winter was passing; soon the year would mend. + +He couldn't sleep that night. Stiff in the dark +He groaned and thought of Sundays at the farm, +When he'd go out as cheerful as a lark +In his best suit to wander arm-in-arm +With brown-eyed Gwen, and whisper in her ear +The simple, silly things she liked to hear. + +And then he thought: to-morrow night we trudge +Up to the trenches, and my boots are rotten. +Five miles of stodgy clay and freezing sludge, +And everything but wretchedness forgotten. +To-night he's in the pink; but soon he'll die. +And still the war goes on; _he_ don't know why. + + +THE HERO + +"Jack fell as he'd have wished," the Mother said, +And folded up the letter that she'd read. +"The Colonel writes so nicely." Something broke +In the tired voice that quavered to a choke. +She half looked up. "We mothers are so proud +Of our dead soldiers." Then her face was bowed. + +Quietly the Brother Officer went out. +He'd told the poor old dear some gallant lies +That she would nourish all her days, no doubt. +For while he coughed and mumbled, her weak eyes +Had shone with gentle triumph, brimmed with joy, +Because he'd been so brave, her glorious boy. + +He thought how "Jack," cold-footed, useless swine, +Had panicked down the trench that night the mine +Went up at Wicked Corner; how he'd tried +To get sent home; and how, at last, he died, +Blown to small bits. And no one seemed to care +Except that lonely woman with white hair. + + +BEFORE THE BATTLE + +Music of whispering trees +Hushed by the broad-winged breeze +Where shaken water gleams; +And evening radiance falling +With reedy bird-notes calling. +O bear me safe through dark, you low-voiced streams. + +I have no need to pray +That fear may pass away; +I scorn the growl and rumble of the fight +That summons me from cool +Silence of marsh and pool, +And yellow lilies islanded in light. +O river of stars and shadows, lead me through the night. + +_June 25th, 1916._ + + +THE ROAD + +The road is thronged with women; soldiers pass +And halt, but never see them; yet they're here-- +A patient crowd along the sodden grass, +Silent, worn out with waiting, sick with fear. +The road goes crawling up a long hillside, +All ruts and stones and sludge, and the emptied dregs +Of battle thrown in heaps. Here where they died +Are stretched big-bellied horses with stiff legs; +And dead men, bloody-fingered from the fight, +Stare up at caverned darkness winking white. + +You in the bomb-scorched kilt, poor sprawling Jock, +You tottered here and fell, and stumbled on, +Half dazed for want of sleep. No dream could mock +Your reeling brain with comforts lost and gone. +You did not feel her arms about your knees, +Her blind caress, her lips upon your head: +Too tired for thoughts of home and love and ease, +The road would serve you well enough for bed. + + +TWO HUNDRED YEARS AFTER + +Trudging by Corbie Ridge one winter's night, +(Unless old, hearsay memories tricked his sight), +Along the pallid edge of the quiet sky +He watched a nosing lorry grinding on, +And straggling files of men; when these were gone, +A double limber and six mules went by, +Hauling the rations up through ruts and mud +To trench-lines digged two hundred years ago. +Then darkness hid them with a rainy scud, +And soon he saw the village lights below. + +But when he'd told his tale, an old man said +That _he'd_ seen soldiers pass along that hill; +"Poor, silent things, they were the English dead +Who came to fight in France and got their fill." + + +THE DREAM + +I + +Moonlight and dew-drenched blossom, and the scent +Of summer gardens; these can bring you all +Those dreams that in the starlit silence fall: +Sweet songs are full of odours. + While I went +Last night in drizzling dusk along a lane, +I passed a squalid farm; from byre and midden +Came the rank smell that brought me once again +A dream of war that in the past was hidden. + +II + +Up a disconsolate straggling village street +I saw the tired troops trudge: I heard their feet. +The cheery Q.M.S. was there to meet +And guide our Company in.... + I watched them stumble. +Into some crazy hovel, too beat to grumble; +Saw them file inward, slipping from their backs +Rifles, equipment, packs. + +On filthy straw they sit in the gloom, each face +Bowed to patched, sodden boots they must unlace, +While the wind chills their sweat through chinks and cracks. + +III + +I'm looking at their blistered feet; young Jones +Stares up at me, mud-splashed and white and jaded; +Out of his eyes the morning light has faded. +Old soldiers with three winters in their bones +Puff their damp Woodbines, whistle, stretch their toes +_They_ can still grin at me, for each of 'em knows +That I'm as tired as they are.... + Can they guess +The secret burden that is always mine?-- +Pride in their courage; pity for their distress; +And burning bitterness +That I must take them to the accursed Line. + +IV + +I cannot hear their voices, but I see +Dim candles in the barn: they gulp their tea, +And soon they'll sleep like logs. Ten miles away +The battle winks and thuds in blundering strife. +And I must lead them nearer, day by day, +To the foul beast of war that bludgeons life. + + +AT CARNOY + +Down in the hollow there's the whole Brigade +Camped in four groups: through twilight falling slow +I hear a sound of mouth-organs, ill-played, +And murmur of voices, gruff, confused, and low. +Crouched among thistle-tufts I've watched the glow +Of a blurred orange sunset flare and fade; +And I'm content. To-morrow we must go +To take some cursed Wood.... O world God made! + +_July 3rd, 1916._ + + +BATTALION RELIEF + +"_Fall in! Now, get a move on!_" (Curse the rain.) +We splash away along the straggling village, +Out to the flat rich country green with June.... +And sunset flares across wet crops and tillage, +Blazing with splendour-patches. Harvest soon +Up in the Line. "_Perhaps the War'll be done +By Christmas-time. Keep smiling then, old son!_" + +Here's the Canal: it's dusk; we cross the bridge. +"_Lead on there by platoons._" The Line's a-glare +With shell-fire through the poplars; distant rattle +Of rifles and machine-guns. "_Fritz is there! +Christ, ain't it lively, Sergeant? Is't a battle?_" +More rain: the lightning blinks, and thunder rumbles. +"There's overhead artillery," some chap grumbles. + +"_What's all this mob, by the cross-road?_" (The guides).... +"_Lead on with Number One_" (And off they go.) + +"_Three-minute intervals._" ... Poor blundering files, +Sweating and blindly burdened; who's to know +If death will catch them in those two dark miles? +(More rain.) "_Lead on, Headquarters._" + (That's the lot.) +"_Who's that? O, Sergeant-major; don't get shot! +And tell me, have we won this war or not?_" + + +THE DUG-OUT + +Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled, +And one arm bent across your sullen cold +Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you, +Deep-shadow'd from the candle's guttering gold; +And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder; +Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head.... +_You are too young to fall asleep for ever; +And when you sleep you remind me of the dead._ + + +THE REAR-GUARD + +(Hindenburg Line, April 1917.) + +Groping along the tunnel, step by step, +He winked his prying torch with patching glare +From side to side, and sniffed the unwholesome air. + +Tins, boxes, bottles, shapes too vague to know, +A mirror smashed, the mattress from a bed; +And he, exploring fifty feet below +The rosy gloom of battle overhead. + +Tripping, he grabbed the wall; saw some one lie +Humped at his feet, half-hidden by a rug, +And stooped to give the sleeper's arm a tug. +"I'm looking for headquarters." No reply. +"God blast your neck!" (For days he'd had no sleep,) +"Get up and guide me through this stinking place." +Savage, he kicked a soft, unanswering heap, +And flashed his beam across the livid face +Terribly glaring up, whose eyes yet wore +Agony dying hard ten days before; +And fists of fingers clutched a blackening wound. + +Alone he staggered on until he found +Dawn's ghost that filtered down a shafted stair +To the dazed, muttering creatures underground +Who hear the boom of shells in muffled sound. +At last, with sweat of horror in his hair, +He climbed through darkness to the twilight air, +Unloading hell behind him step by step. + + +I STOOD WITH THE DEAD + +I stood with the Dead, so forsaken and still: + When dawn was grey I stood with the Dead. +And my slow heart said, "You must kill; you must kill: + Soldier, soldier, morning is red." + +On the shapes of the slain in their crumpled disgrace + I stared for a while through the thin cold rain.... +"O lad that I loved, there is rain on your face, + And your eyes are blurred and sick like the plain." + +I stood with the Dead.... They were dead; they were dead; + My heart and my head beat a march of dismay; +And gusts of the wind came dulled by the guns.... + "Fall in!" I shouted; "Fall in for your pay!" + + +SUICIDE IN TRENCHES + +I knew a simple soldier boy +Who grinned at life in empty joy, +Slept soundly through the lonesome dark, +And whistled early with the lark. + +In winter trenches, cowed and glum +With crumps and lice and lack of rum, +He put a bullet through his brain. +No one spoke of him again. + + * * * * * + +You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye +Who cheer when soldier lads march by, +Sneak home and pray you'll never know +The hell where youth and laughter go. + + +ATTACK + +At dawn the ridge emerges massed and dun +In the wild purple of the glowering sun +Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud +The menacing scarred slope; and, one by one, +Tanks creep and topple forward to the wire. +The barrage roars and lifts. Then, clumsily bowed +With bombs and guns and shovels and battle-gear, +Men jostle and climb to meet the bristling fire. +Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear, +They leave their trenches, going over the top, +While time ticks blank and busy on their wrists, +And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists, +Flounders in mud. O Jesu, make it stop! + + +COUNTER-ATTACK + +We'd gained our first objective hours before +While dawn broke like a face with blinking eyes, +Pallid, unshaved and thirsty, blind with smoke. +Things seemed all right at first. We held their line, +With bombers posted, Lewis guns well placed, +And clink of shovels deepening the shallow trench. +The place was rotten with dead; green clumsy legs +High-booted, sprawled and grovelled along the saps +And trunks, face downward in the sucking mud, +Wallowed like trodden sand-bags loosely filled; +And naked sodden buttocks, mats of hair, +Bulged, clotted heads, slept in the plastering slime. +And then the rain began,--the jolly old rain! + +A yawning soldier knelt against the bank, +Staring across the morning blear with fog; +He wondered when the Allemands would get busy; +And then, of course, they started with five-nines +Traversing, sure as fate, and never a dud. +Mute in the clamour of shells he watched them burst +Spouting dark earth and wire with gusts from hell, +While posturing giants dissolved in drifts of smoke. + +He crouched and flinched, dizzy with galloping fear, +Sick for escape,--loathing the strangled horror +And butchered, frantic gestures of the dead. + +An officer came blundering down the trench: +"Stand-to and man the fire-step!" On he went.... +Gasping and bawling, "Fire-step ... counter-attack!" +Then the haze lifted. Bombing on the right +Down the old sap: machine-guns on the left; +And stumbling figures looming out in front. +"O Christ, they're coming at us!" Bullets spat, +And he remembered his rifle ... rapid fire ... +And started blazing wildly ... then a bang +Crumpled and spun him sideways, knocked him out +To grunt and wriggle: none heeded him; he choked +And fought the flapping veils of smothering gloom, +Lost in a blurred confusion of yells and groans.... +Down, and down, and down, he sank and drowned, +Bleeding to death. The counter-attack had failed. + + + +THE EFFECT + + "The effect of our bombardment was terrific. One man told me + he had never seen so many dead before." + + _War Correspondent._ + +"_He'd never seen so many dead before._" +They sprawled in yellow daylight while he swore +And gasped and lugged his everlasting load +Of bombs along what once had been a road. +"_How peaceful are the dead._" +Who put that silly gag in some one's head? + +"_He'd never seen so many dead before._" +The lilting words danced up and down his brain, +While corpses jumped and capered in the rain. +No, no; he wouldn't count them any more.... +The dead have done with pain: +They've choked; they can't come back to life again. + +When Dick was killed last week he looked like that, +Flapping along the fire-step like a fish, +After the blazing crump had knocked him flat.... +"_How many dead? As many as ever you wish. +Don't count 'em; they're too many. +Who'll buy my nice fresh corpses, two a penny?_" + + +REMORSE + +Lost in the swamp and welter of the pit, +He flounders off the duck-boards; only he knows +Each flash and spouting crash,--each instant lit +When gloom reveals the streaming rain. He goes +Heavily, blindly on. And, while he blunders, +"Could anything be worse than this?"--he wonders, +Remembering how he saw those Germans run, +Screaming for mercy among the stumps of trees: +Green-faced, they dodged and darted: there was one +Livid with terror, clutching at his knees.... +Our chaps were sticking 'em like pigs.... "O hell!" +He thought--"there's things in war one dare not tell +Poor father sitting safe at home, who reads +Of dying heroes and their deathless deeds." + + +IN AN UNDERGROUND DRESSING-STATION + +Quietly they set their burden down: he tried +To grin; moaned; moved his head from side to side. + + * * * * * + +He gripped the stretcher; stiffened; glared; and screamed, +"O put my leg down, doctor, do!" (He'd got +A bullet in his ankle; and he'd been shot +Horribly through the guts.) The surgeon seemed +So kind and gentle, saying, above that crying, +"You _must_ keep still, my lad." But he was dying. + + +DIED OF WOUNDS + +His wet, white face and miserable eyes +Brought nurses to him more than groans and sighs: +But hoarse and low and rapid rose and fell +His troubled voice: he did the business well. + +The ward grew dark; but he was still complaining, +And calling out for "Dickie." "Curse the Wood! +It's time to go; O Christ, and what's the good?-- +We'll never take it; and it's always raining." + +I wondered where he'd been; then heard him shout, +"They snipe like hell! O Dickie, don't go out" ... +I fell asleep ... next morning he was dead; +And some Slight Wound lay smiling on his bed. + + + + +II + + +"THEY" + +The Bishop tells us: "When the boys come back +They will not be the same; for they'll have fought +In a just cause: they lead the last attack +On Anti-Christ; their comrade's blood has bought +New right to breed an honourable race. +They have challenged Death and dared him face to face." + +"We're none of us the same!" the boys reply. +"For George lost both his legs; and Bill's stone blind; +Poor Jim's shot through the lungs and like to die; +And Bert's gone syphilitic: you'll not find +A chap who's served that hasn't found _some_ change." +And the Bishop said; "The ways of God are strange!" + + +BASE DETAILS + +If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath, + I'd live with scarlet Majors at the Base, +And speed glum heroes up the line to death. + You'd see me with my puffy petulant face, +Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel, + Reading the Roll of Honour. "Poor young chap," +I'd say--"I used to know his father well; + Yes, we've lost heavily in this last scrap." +And when the war is done and youth stone dead, +I'd toddle safely home and die--in bed. + + +LAMENTATIONS + +I found him in a guard-room at the Base. +From the blind darkness I had heard his crying +And blundered in. With puzzled, patient face +A sergeant watched him; it was no good trying +To stop it; for he howled and beat his chest. +And, all because his brother had gone West, +Raved at the bleeding war; his rampant grief +Moaned, shouted, sobbed, and choked, while he was kneeling +Half-naked on the floor. In my belief +Such men have lost all patriotic feeling. + + +THE GENERAL + +"Good-morning; good-morning!" the General said +When we met him last week on our way to the Line, +Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of 'em dead, +And we're cursing his staff for incompetent swine. +"He's a cheery old card," grunted Harry to Jack +As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack. + + * * * * * + +But he did for them both by his plan of attack. + + +HOW TO DIE + +Dark clouds are smouldering into red + While down the craters morning burns. +The dying soldier shifts his head + To watch the glory that returns: +He lifts his fingers toward the skies + Where holy brightness breaks in flame; +Radiance reflected in his eyes, + And on his lips a whispered name. + +You'd think, to hear some people talk, + That lads go West with sobs and curses, +And sullen faces white as chalk, + Hankering for wreaths and tombs and hearses. +But they've been taught the way to do it + Like Christian soldiers; not with haste +And shuddering groans; but passing through it + With due regard for decent taste. + + +EDITORIAL IMPRESSION + +He seemed so certain "all was going well," +As he discussed the glorious time he'd had +While visiting the trenches. + "One can tell +You've gathered big impressions!" grinned the lad +Who'd been severely wounded in the back +In some wiped-out impossible Attack. +"Impressions? Yes, most vivid! I am writing +A little book called _Europe on the Rack_, +Based on notes made while witnessing the fighting. +I hope I've caught the feeling of 'the Line,' +And the amazing spirit of the troops. +By Jove, those flying-chaps of ours are fine! +I watched one daring beggar looping loops, +Soaring and diving like some bird of prey. +And through it all I felt that splendour shine +Which makes us win." + The soldier sipped his wine. +"Ah, yes, but it's the Press that leads the way!" + + +FIGHT TO A FINISH + +The boys came back. Bands played and flags were flying, + And Yellow-Pressmen thronged the sunlit street +To cheer the soldiers who'd refrained from dying, + And hear the music of returning feet. +"Of all the thrills and ardours War has brought, +This moment is the finest." (So they thought.) + +Snapping their bayonets on to charge the mob, + Grim Fusiliers broke ranks with glint of steel. +At last the boys had found a cushy job. + + * * * * * + + I heard the Yellow-Pressmen grunt and squeal; +And with my trusty bombers turned and went +To clear those Junkers out of Parliament. + + +ATROCITIES + +You told me, in your drunken-boasting mood, +How once you butchered prisoners. That was good! +I'm sure you felt no pity while they stood +Patient and cowed and scared, as prisoners should. + +How did you do them in? Come, don't be shy: +You know I love to hear how Germans die, +Downstairs in dug-outs. "Camerad!" they cry; +Then squeal like stoats when bombs begin to fly. + + * * * * * + +And you? I know your record. You went sick +When orders looked unwholesome: then, with trick +And lie, you wangled home. And here you are, +Still talking big and boozing in a bar. + + +THE FATHERS + +Snug at the club two fathers sat, +Gross, goggle-eyed, and full of chat. +One of them said: "My eldest lad +Writes cheery letters from Bagdad. +But Arthur's getting all the fun +At Arras with his nine-inch gun." + +"Yes," wheezed the other, "that's the luck! +My boy's quite broken-hearted, stuck +In England training all this year. +Still, if there's truth in what we hear, +The Huns intend to ask for more + Before they bolt across the Rhine." +I watched them toddle through the door-- + These impotent old friends of mine. + + +"BLIGHTERS" + +The house is crammed: tier beyond tier they grin +And cackle at the Show, while prancing ranks +Of harlots shrill the chorus, drunk with din; +"We're sure the Kaiser loves the dear old Tanks!" + +I'd like to see a Tank come down the stalls, +Lurching to rag-time tunes, or "Home, sweet Home,"-- +And there'd be no more jokes in Music-halls +To mock the riddled corpses round Bapaume. + + +GLORY OF WOMEN + +You love us when we're heroes, home on leave, +Or wounded in a mentionable place. +You worship decorations; you believe +That chivalry redeems the war's disgrace. +You make us shells. You listen with delight, +By tales of dirt and danger fondly thrilled. +You crown our distant ardours while we fight, +And mourn our laurelled memories when we're killed. + +You can't believe that British troops "retire" +When hell's last horror breaks them, and they run, +Trampling the terrible corpses--blind with blood. +_O German mother dreaming by the fire, +While you are knitting socks to send your son +His face is trodden deeper in the mud._ + + +THEIR FRAILTY + +He's got a Blighty wound. He's safe; and then + War's fine and bold and bright. +She can forget the doomed and prisoned men + Who agonize and fight. + +He's back in France. She loathes the listless strain + And peril of his plight. +Beseeching Heaven to send him home again, + She prays for peace each night. + +Husbands and sons and lovers; everywhere + They die; War bleeds us white. +Mothers and wives and sweethearts,--they don't care + So long as He's all right. + + +DOES IT MATTER? + +Does it matter?--losing your legs?... +For people will always be kind, +And you need not show that you mind +When the others come in after football +To gobble their muffins and eggs. + +Does it matter?--losing your sight?... +There's such splendid work for the blind; +And people will always be kind, +As you sit on the terrace remembering +And turning your face to the light. + +Do they matter?--those dreams from the pit?... +You can drink and forget and be glad, +And people won't say that you're mad; +For they'll know that you've fought for your country, +And no one will worry a bit. + + +SURVIVORS + +No doubt they'll soon get well; the shock and strain +Have caused their stammering, disconnected talk. +Of course they're "longing to go out again,"-- +These boys with old, scared faces, learning to walk, +They'll soon forget their haunted nights; their cowed +Subjection to the ghosts of friends who died,-- +Their dreams that drip with murder; and they'll be proud +Of glorious war that shatter'd all their pride.... +Men who went out to battle, grim and glad; +Children, with eyes that hate you, broken and mad. + +CRAIGLOCKHART, +_Oct. 1917._ + + +JOY-BELLS + +Ring your sweet bells; but let them be farewells + To the green-vista'd gladness of the past +That changed us into soldiers; swing your bells + To a joyful chime; but let it be the last. + +What means this metal in windy belfries hung + When guns are all our need? Dissolve these bells +Whose tones are tuned for peace: with martial tongue + Let them cry doom and storm the sun with shells. + +Bells are like fierce-browed prelates who proclaim + That "if our Lord returned He'd fight for us." +So let our bells and bishops do the same, + Shoulder to shoulder with the motor-bus. + + +ARMS AND THE MAN + +Young Croesus went to pay his call +On Colonel Sawbones, Caxton Hall: +And, though his wound was healed and mended, +He hoped he'd get his leave extended. + +The waiting-room was dark and bare. +He eyed a neat-framed notice there +Above the fireplace hung to show +Disabled heroes where to go +For arms and legs; with scale of price, +And words of dignified advice +How officers could get them free. + +Elbow or shoulder, hip or knee,-- +Two arms, two legs, though all were lost, +They'd be restored him free of cost. + +Then a Girl-Guide looked in to say, +"Will Captain Croesus come this way?" + + +WHEN I'M AMONG A BLAZE OF LIGHTS ... + +When I'm among a blaze of lights, +With tawdry music and cigars +And women dawdling through delights, +And officers at cocktail bars,-- +Sometimes I think of garden nights +And elm trees nodding at the stars. + +I dream of a small firelit room +With yellow candles burning straight, +And glowing pictures in the gloom, +And kindly books that hold me late. +Of things like these I love to think +When I can never be alone: +Then some one says, "Another drink?"-- +And turns my living heart to stone. + + +THE KISS + +To these I turn, in these I trust; +Brother Lead and Sister Steel. +To his blind power I make appeal; +I guard her beauty clean from rust. + +He spins and burns and loves the air, +And splits a skull to win my praise; +But up the nobly marching days +She glitters naked, cold and fair. + +Sweet Sister, grant your soldier this; +That in good fury he may feel +The body where he sets his heel +Quail from your downward darting kiss. + + +THE TOMBSTONE-MAKER + +He primmed his loose red mouth, and leaned his head +Against a sorrowing angel's breast, and said: +"You'd think so much bereavement would have made +Unusual big demands upon my trade. +The War comes cruel hard on some poor folk-- +Unless the fighting stops I'll soon be broke." + +He eyed the Cemetery across the road-- +"There's scores of bodies out abroad, this while, +That should be here by rights; they little know'd +How they'd get buried in such wretched style." + +I told him, with a sympathetic grin, +That Germans boil dead soldiers down for fat; +And he was horrified. "What shameful sin! +O sir, that Christian men should come to that!" + + +THE ONE-LEGGED MAN + +Propped on a stick he viewed the August weald; +Squat orchard trees and oasts with painted cowls; +A homely, tangled hedge, a corn-stooked field, +With sound of barking dogs and farmyard fowls. + +And he'd come home again to find it more +Desirable than ever it was before. +How right it seemed that he should reach the span +Of comfortable years allowed to man! + +Splendid to eat and sleep and choose a wife, +Safe with his wound, a citizen of life. +He hobbled blithely through the garden gate, +And thought; "Thank God they had to amputate!" + + +RETURN OF THE HEROES + + _A lady watches from the crowd, + Enthusiastic, flushed, and proud._ + +"Oh! there's Sir Henry Dudster! Such a splendid leader! +How pleased he looks! What rows of ribbons on his tunic! +Such dignity.... Saluting.... (_Wave your flag ... now, Freda!_)... +Yes, dear, I saw a Prussian General once,--at Munich. + +"Here's the next carriage!... Jack was once in Leggit's Corps; +That's him!... I think the stout one is Sir Godfrey Stoomer. +They _must_ feel sad to know they can't win any more +Great victories!... Aren't they glorious men?... so full of humour!" + + + + +III + + +TWELVE MONTHS AFTER + +Hullo! here's my platoon, the lot I had last year. +"The War'll be over soon." + "What 'opes?" + "No bloody fear!" +Then, "Number Seven, 'shun! All present and correct." +They're standing in the sun, impassive and erect. +Young Gibson with his grin; and Morgan, tired and white; +Jordan, who's out to win a D.C.M. some night: +And Hughes that's keen on wiring; and Davies ('79), +Who always must be firing at the Boche front line. + + * * * * * + +"Old soldiers never die; they simply fide a-why!" +That's what they used to sing along the roads last spring; +That's what they used to say before the push began; +That's where they are to-day, knocked over to a man. + + +TO ANY DEAD OFFICER + +Well, how are things in Heaven? I wish you'd say, + Because I'd like to know that you're all right. +Tell me, have you found everlasting day, + Or been sucked in by everlasting night? +For when I shut my eyes your face shows plain; + I hear you make some cheery old remark-- +I can rebuild you in my brain, + Though you've gone out patrolling in the dark. + +You hated tours of trenches; you were proud + Of nothing more than having good years to spend; +Longed to get home and join the careless crowd + Of chaps who work in peace with Time for friend. +That's all washed out now. You're beyond the wire: + No earthly chance can send you crawling back; +You've finished with machine-gun fire-- + Knocked over in a hopeless dud-attack. + +Somehow I always thought you'd get done in, + Because you were so desperate keen to live: +You were all out to try and save your skin, + Well knowing how much the world had got to give. +You joked at shells and talked the usual "shop," + Stuck to your dirty job and did it fine: +With "Jesus Christ! when _will_ it stop? + Three years.... It's hell unless we break their line." + +So when they told me you'd been left for dead + I wouldn't believe them, feeling it _must_ be true. +Next week the bloody Roll of Honour said + "Wounded and missing"--(That's the thing to do +When lads are left in shell-holes dying slow, + With nothing but blank sky and wounds that ache, +Moaning for water till they know + It's night, and then it's not worth while to wake!) + + * * * * * + +Good-bye, old lad! Remember me to God, + And tell Him that our Politicians swear +They won't give in till Prussian Rule's been trod + Under the Heel of England.... Are you there?... + +Yes ... and the War won't end for at least two years; +But we've got stacks of men ... I'm blind with tears, + Staring into the dark. Cheero! +I wish they'd killed you in a decent show. + + +SICK LEAVE + +When I'm asleep, dreaming and lulled and warm,-- +They come, the homeless ones, the noiseless dead. +While the dim charging breakers of the storm +Bellow and drone and rumble overhead, +Out of the gloom they gather about my bed. +They whisper to my heart; their thoughts are mine. +"Why are you here with all your watches ended? +From Ypres to Frise we sought you in the Line." +In bitter safety I awake, unfriended; +And while the dawn begins with slashing rain +I think of the Battalion in the mud. +"When are you going out to them again? +Are they not still your brothers through our blood?" + + +BANISHMENT + +I am banished from the patient men who fight. +They smote my heart to pity, built my pride. +Shoulder to aching shoulder, side by side, +They trudged away from life's broad wealds of light. +Their wrongs were mine; and ever in my sight +They went arrayed in honour. But they died,-- +Not one by one: and mutinous I cried +To those who sent them out into the night. + +The darkness tells how vainly I have striven +To free them from the pit where they must dwell +In outcast gloom convulsed and jagged and riven +By grappling guns. Love drove me to rebel. +Love drives me back to grope with them through hell; +And in their tortured eyes I stand forgiven. + + +AUTUMN + +October's bellowing anger breaks and cleaves +The bronzed battalions of the stricken wood +In whose lament I hear a voice that grieves +For battle's fruitless harvest, and the feud +Of outraged men. Their lives are like the leaves +Scattered in flocks of ruin, tossed and blown +Along the westering furnace flaring red. +O martyred youth and manhood overthrown, +The burden of your wrongs is on my head. + + +REPRESSION OF WAR EXPERIENCE + +Now light the candles; one; two; there's a moth; +What silly beggars they are to blunder in +And scorch their wings with glory, liquid flame-- +No, no, not that,--it's bad to think of war, +When thoughts you've gagged all day come back to scare you; +And it's been proved that soldiers don't go mad +Unless they lose control of ugly thoughts +That drive them out to jabber among the trees. + +Now light your pipe; look, what a steady hand. +Draw a deep breath; stop thinking; count fifteen, +And you're as right as rain.... Why won't it rain?... +I wish there'd be a thunder-storm to-night, +With bucketsful of water to sluice the dark, +And make the roses hang their dripping heads. + +Books; what a jolly company they are, +Standing so quiet and patient on their shelves, +Dressed in dim brown, and black, and white, and green +And every kind of colour. Which will you read? +Come on; O _do_ read something; they're so wise. +I tell you all the wisdom of the world +Is waiting for you on those shelves; and yet +You sit and gnaw your nails, and let your pipe out, +And listen to the silence: on the ceiling +There's one big, dizzy moth that bumps and flutters; +And in the breathless air outside the house +The garden waits for something that delays. +There must be crowds of ghosts among the trees,-- +Not people killed in battle,--they're in France,-- +But horrible shapes in shrouds--old men who died +Slow, natural deaths,--old men with ugly souls, +Who wore their bodies out with nasty sins. + + * * * * * + +You're quiet and peaceful, summering safe at home; +You'd never think there was a bloody war on!... +O yes, you would ... why, you can hear the guns. +Hark! Thud, thud, thud,--quite soft ... they never cease-- +Those whispering guns--O Christ, I want to go out +And screech at them to stop--I'm going crazy; +I'm going stark, staring mad because of the guns. + + +TOGETHER + +Splashing along the boggy woods all day, +And over brambled hedge and holding clay, +I shall not think of him: +But when the watery fields grow brown and dim, +And hounds have lost their fox, and horses tire, +I know that he'll be with me on my way +Home through the darkness to the evening fire. + +He's jumped each stile along the glistening lanes; +His hand will be upon the mud-soaked reins; +Hearing the saddle creak, +He'll wonder if the frost will come next week. +I shall forget him in the morning light; +And while we gallop on he will not speak: +But at the stable-door he'll say good-night. + + +THE HAWTHORN TREE + +Not much to me is yonder lane + Where I go every day; +But when there's been a shower of rain + And hedge-birds whistle gay, +I know my lad that's out in France + With fearsome things to see +Would give his eyes for just one glance + At our white hawthorn tree. + + * * * * * + +Not much to me is yonder lane + Where _he_ so longs to tread; +But when there's been a shower of rain +I think I'll never weep again + Until I've heard he's dead. + + +CONCERT PARTY + +(EGYPTIAN BASE CAMP) + +They are gathering round ... +Out of the twilight; over the grey-blue sand, +Shoals of low-jargoning men drift inward to the sound,-- +The jangle and throb of a piano ... tum-ti-tum ... +Drawn by a lamp, they come +Out of the glimmering lines of their tents, over the shuffling sand. + +O sing us the songs, the songs of our own land, +You warbling ladies in white. +Dimness conceals the hunger in our faces, +This wall of faces risen out of the night, +These eyes that keep their memories of the places +So long beyond their sight. + +Jaded and gay, the ladies sing; and the chap in brown +Tilts his grey hat; jaunty and lean and pale, +He rattles the keys ... some actor-bloke from town ... + +"_God send you home_"; and then "_A long, long trail_"; +"_I hear you catting me_"; and "_Dixieland_" ... +Sing slowly ... now the chorus ... one by one +We hear them, drink them; till the concert's done. +Silent, I watch the shadowy mass of soldiers stand. +Silent, they drift away, over the glimmering sand. + +KANTARA, +_April, 1918._ + + +NIGHT ON THE CONVOY + +(ALEXANDRIA-MARSEILLES) + +Out in the blustering darkness, on the deck +A gleam of stars looks down. Long blurs of black, +The lean Destroyers, level with our track, +Plunging and stealing, watch the perilous way +Through backward racing seas and caverns of chill spray. + +One sentry by the davits, in the gloom +Stands mute; the boat heaves onward through the night. +Shrouded is every chink of cabined light: +And sluiced by floundering waves that hiss and boom +And crash like guns, the troop-ship shudders ... doom. + +Now something at my feet stirs with a sigh; +And slowly growing used to groping dark, +I know that the hurricane-deck, down all its length, +Is heaped and spread with lads in sprawling strength,-- +Blanketed soldiers sleeping. In the stark +Danger of life at war, they lie so still, +All prostrate and defenceless, head by head ... +And I remember Arras, and that hill +Where dumb with pain I stumbled among the dead. + + * * * * * + +We are going home. The troop-ship, in a thrill +Of fiery-chamber'd anguish, throbs and rolls. +We are going home ... victims ... three thousand souls. + +_May, 1918._ + + +A LETTER HOME + +(To Robert Graves) + +I + +Here I'm sitting in the gloom +Of my quiet attic room. +France goes rolling all around, +Fledged with forest May has crowned. +And I puff my pipe, calm-hearted, +Thinking how the fighting started, +Wondering when we'll ever end it, +Back to Hell with Kaiser send it, +Gag the noise, pack up and go, +Clockwork soldiers in a row. +I've got better things to do +Than to waste my time on you. + +II + +Robert, when I drowse to-night, +Skirting lawns of sleep to chase +Shifting dreams in mazy light, +Somewhere then I'll see your face +Turning back to bid me follow +Where I wag my arms and hollo, +Over hedges hasting after +Crooked smile and baffling laughter, +Running tireless, floating, leaping, +Down your web-hung woods and valleys, +Garden glooms and hornbeam alleys, +Where the glowworm stars are peeping, +Till I find you, quiet as stone +On a hill-top all alone, +Staring outward, gravely pondering +Jumbled leagues of hillock-wandering. + +III + +You and I have walked together +In the starving winter weather. +We've been glad because we knew +Time's too short and friends are few. +We've been sad because we missed +One whose yellow head was kissed +By the gods, who thought about him +Till they couldn't do without him. +Now he's here again; I've seen +Soldier David dressed in green, +Standing in a wood that swings +To the madrigal he sings. +He's come back, all mirth and glory, +Like the prince in a fairy story. +Winter called him far away; +Blossoms bring him home with May. + +IV + +Well, I know you'll swear it's true +That you found him decked in blue +Striding up through morning-land +With a cloud on either hand. +Out in Wales, you'll say, he marches +Arm-in-arm with oaks and larches; +Hides all night in hilly nooks, +Laughs at dawn in tumbling brooks. +Yet, it's certain, here he teaches +Outpost-schemes to groups of beeches. +And I'm sure, as here I stand, +That he shines through every land, +That he sings in every place +Where we're thinking of his face. + +V + +Robert, there's a war in France; +Everywhere men bang and blunder, +Sweat and swear and worship Chance, +Creep and blink through cannon thunder. +Rifles crack and bullets flick, +Sing and hum like hornet-swarms. +Bones are smashed and buried quick. +Yet, through stunning battle storms. +All the while I watch the spark +Lit to guide me; for I know +Dreams will triumph, though the dark +Scowls above me where I go. +_You_ can hear me; _you_ can mingle +Radiant folly with my jingle, +War's a joke for me and you +While we know such dreams are true! + + +RECONCILIATION + +When you are standing at your hero's grave, +Or near some homeless village where he died, +Remember, through your heart's rekindling pride, +The German soldiers who were loyal and brave. + +Men fought like brutes; and hideous things were done: +And you have nourished hatred, harsh and blind. +But in that Golgotha perhaps you'll find +The mothers of the men who killed your son. + +_November, 1918._ + + +MEMORIAL TABLET + +(GREAT WAR) + +Squire nagged and bullied till I went to fight +(Under Lord Derby's scheme). I died in hell-- +(They called it Passchendaele); my wound was slight, +And I was hobbling back, and then a shell +Burst slick upon the duck-boards; so I fell +Into the bottomless mud, and lost the light. + +In sermon-time, while Squire is in his pew, +He gives my gilded name a thoughtful stare; +For though low down upon the list, I'm there: +"In proud and glorious memory"--that's my due. +Two bleeding years I fought in France for Squire; +I suffered anguish that he's never guessed; +Once I came home on leave; and then went west. +What greater glory could a man desire? + + +THE DEATH-BED + +He drowsed and was aware of silence heaped +Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls; +Aqueous like floating rays of amber light, +Soaring and quivering in the wings of sleep,-- +Silence and safety; and his mortal shore +Lipped by the inward, moonless waves of death. + +Some one was holding water to his mouth. +He swallowed, unresisting; moaned and dropped +Through crimson gloom to darkness; and forgot +The opiate throb and ache that was his wound. +Water--calm, sliding green above the weir; +Water--a sky-lit alley for his boat, +Bird-voiced, and bordered with reflected flowers +And shaken hues of summer: drifting down, +He dipped contented oars, and sighed, and slept. + +Night, with a gust of wind, was in the ward, +Blowing the curtain to a glimmering curve. +Night. He was blind; he could not see the stars +Glinting among the wraiths of wandering cloud; +Queer blots of colour, purple, scarlet, green, +Flickered and faded in his drowning eyes. + +Rain; he could hear it rustling through the dark; +Fragrance and passionless music woven as one; +Warm rain on drooping roses; pattering showers +That soak the woods; not the harsh rain that sweeps +Behind the thunder, but a trickling peace +Gently and slowly washing life away. + + * * * * * + +He stirred, shifting his body; then the pain +Leaped like a prowling beast, and gripped and tore +His groping dreams with grinding claws and fangs. +But some one was beside him; soon he lay +Shuddering because that evil thing had passed. +And Death, who'd stepped toward him, paused and stared. + +Light many lamps and gather round his bed. +Lend him your eyes, warm blood, and will to live. +Speak to him; rouse him; you may save him yet. +He's young; he hated war; how should he die +When cruel old campaigners win safe through? + +But Death replied: "I choose him." So he went, +And there was silence in the summer night; +Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep. +Then, far away, the thudding of the guns. + + +AFTERMATH + +_Have you forgotten yet?..._ +For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days, +Like traffic checked awhile at the crossing of city ways: +And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow +Like clouds in the lit heavens of life; and you're a man reprieved to go, +Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare. +_But the past is just the same,--and War's a bloody game,... +Have you forgotten yet?... +Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you'll never forget._ + +Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz,-- +The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets? +Do you remember the rats; and the stench +Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench,-- +And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain? +Do you ever stop and ask, "Is it all going to happen again?" + +Do you remember that hour of din before the attack,-- +And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then +As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men? +Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back +With dying eyes and lolling heads,--those ashen-grey +Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay? + +_Have you forgotten yet?... +Look up, and swear by the green of the Spring that you'll never forget._ + + +SONG-BOOKS OF THE WAR + +In fifty years, when peace outshines +Remembrance of the battle lines, +Adventurous lads will sigh and cast +Proud looks upon the plundered past. +On summer morn or winter's night, +Their hearts will kindle for the fight, +Reading a snatch of soldier-song, +Savage and jaunty, fierce and strong; +And through the angry marching rhymes +Of blind regret and haggard mirth, +They'll envy us the dazzling times +When sacrifice absolved our earth. + +Some ancient man with silver locks +Will lift his weary face to say: +"War was a fiend who stopped our clocks +Although we met him grim and gay." +And then he'll speak of Haig's last drive, +Marvelling that any came alive +Out of the shambles that men built +And smashed, to cleanse the world of guilt. +But the boys, with grin and sidelong glance, +Will think, "Poor grandad's day is done." +And dream of lads who fought in France +And lived in time to share the fun. + + +EVERYONE SANG + +Everyone suddenly burst out singing; +And I was filled with such delight +As prisoned birds must find in freedom +Winging wildly across the white +Orchards and dark green fields; on; on; and out of sight. + +Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted, +And beauty came like the setting sun. +My heart was shaken with tears and horror +Drifted away ... O but every one +Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done. + +_April, 1919._ + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon +by Siegfried Sassoon + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WAR POEMS OF SIEGFRIED SASSOON *** + +***** This file should be named 14757.txt or 14757.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/7/5/14757/ + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Linda Cantoni, and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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