Returning, We Hear the Larks
Sombre the night is. And though we have our lives, we know What sinister threat lurks there. Dragging these anguished limbs, we only know This poison-blasted track opens on our camp – On a little safe sleep. But hark! joy – joy – strange joy. Lo! heights of night ringing with unseen larks. Music showering our upturned list’ning faces. Death could drop from the dark As easily as song –But song only dropped, Like a blind man’s dreams on the sand By dangerous tides, Like a girl’s dark hair for she dreams no ruin lies there, Or her kisses where a serpent hides. (1917) Marching (As Seen from the Left File)
My eyes catch ruddy necks Sturdily pressed back – All a red-brick moving glint. Like flaming pendulums, hands Swing across the khaki – Mustard-coloured khaki – To the automatic feet. We husband the ancient glory In these bared necks and hands. Not broke is the forge of Mars; But a subtler brain beats iron To shoe the hoofs of death, (Who paws dynamic air now). Blind fingers loose an iron cloud To rain immortal darkness On strong eyes. (1915-16) |
Break of Day in the Trenches
The darkness crumbles away. It is the same old Druid Time as ever, Only a live thing leaps my hand, A queer sardonic rat, As I pull the parapet’s poppy To stick behind my ear. Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew Your cosmopolitan sympathies. Now you have touched this English hand You will do the same to a German Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure To cross the sleeping green between. It seems, odd thing, you grin as you pass Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes, Less chanced than you for life, Bonds to the whims of murder, Sprawled in the bowels of the earth, The torn fields of France. What do you see in our eyes At the shrieking iron and flame Hurled through still heavens? What quaver – what heart aghast? Poppies whose roots are in man’s veins Drop, and are ever dropping; But mine in my ear is safe – Just a little white with the dust. (June 1916) |