  I.—NOONIt is midday: the deep trench glares.... A buzz and blaze of flies.... The hot wind puffs the giddy airs.... The great sun rakes the skies. No sound in all the stagnant trench Where forty standing men Endure the sweat and grit and stench, Like cattle in a pen. Sometimes a sniper's bullet whirs Or twangs the whining wire; Sometimes a soldier sighs and stirs As in hell's frying fire. From out a high cool cloud descends An aeroplane's far moan.... The sun strikes down, the thin cloud rends.... The black speck travels on. And sweating, dizzied, isolate In the hot trench beneath, We bide the next shrewd move of fate Be it of life or death. II.—NIGHT BOMBARDMENTSoftly in the silence the evening rain descends.... The soft wind lifts the rain-mist, flurries it, and spends Its grief in mournful sighs, drifting from field to field, Soaking the draggled sprays which the low hedges wield As they labour in the wet and the load of the wind. The last light is dimming; night comes on behind. I hear no sound but the wind and the rain, And trample of horses, loud and lost again Where the waggons in the mist rumble dimly on Bringing more shell. The last gleam is gone. It is not day or night; only the mists unroll And blind with their sorrow the sight of my soul. I hear the wind weeping in the hollow overhead: She goes searching for the forgotten dead Hidden in the hedges or trodden into muck Under the trenches, or maybe limply stuck Somewhere in the branches of a high lonely tree— He was a sniper once. They never found his body. I see the mist drifting. I hear the wind and rain, And on my clammy face the oozed breath of the slain Seems to be blowing. Almost I have heard In the shuddering drift the lost dead's last word: Go home, go home, go to my house; Knock at the door, knock hard, arouse My wife and the children—that you must do— What do you say?—Tell the children, too— Knock at the door, knock hard, arouse The living. Say: the dead won't come back to this house. O ... but it's cold—I soak in the rain— Shrapnel found me—I shan't come home again— No, not home again! The mourning voices trail Away into rain, into darkness ... the pale Soughing of the night drifts on in between. The Voices were as if the dead had never been. O melancholy heavens, O melancholy fields, The glad, full darkness grows complete and shields Me from your appeal. With a terrible delight I hear far guns low like oxen at the night. Flames disrupt the sky. The work is begun. "Action!" My guns crash, flame, rock and stun Again and again. Soon the soughing night Is loud with their clamour and leaps with their light. The imperative chorus rises sonorous and fell: My heart glows lighted as by fires of hell. Sharply I pass the terse orders down. The guns blare and rock. The hissing rain is blown Athwart the hurtled shell that shrilling, shrilling goes Away into the dark, to burst a cloud of rose Over German trenches. A pause: I stand and see Lifting into the night like founts incessantly The pistol-lights' pale spores upon the glimmering air.... Under them furrowed trenches empty, pallid, bare.... And rain snowing trenchward ghostly and white. O dead in the hedges, sleep ye well to-night! III.—COMRADES: AN EPISODEBefore, before he was aware The 'Verey' light had risen ... on the air It hung glistering.... And he could not stay his hand From moving to the barbed wire's broken strand. A rifle cracked. He fell. Night waned. He was alone. A heavy shell Whispered itself passing high, high overhead. His wound was wet to his hand: for still it bled On to the glimmering ground. Then with a slow, vain smile his wound he bound, Knowing, of course, he'd not see home again— Home whose thought he put away. His men Whispered: "Where's Mister Gates?" "Out on the wire." "I'll get him," said one.... Dawn blinked, and the fire "Stand to!" Too late! "I'll get him." "O the swine! When we might get him in yet safe and whole!" "Corporal didn't see 'un fall out on patrol, Or he'd 'a got 'un." "Sssh!" "No talking there." A whisper: "'A went down at the last flare." Meanwhile the Maxims toc-toc-tocked; their swish Of bullets told death lurked against the wish. No hope for him! His corporal, as one shamed, Vainly and helplessly his ill-luck blamed. Then Gates slowly saw the morn Break in a rosy peace through the lone thorn By which he lay, and felt the dawn-wind pass Whispering through the pallid, stalky grass Of No-Man's Land.... And the tears came Scaldingly sweet, more lovely than a flame. He closed his eyes: he thought of home And grit his teeth. He knew no help could come.... The silent sun over the earth held sway, Occasional rifles cracked and far away Like a fly traversing a cliff of stone. "I must get back," said Gates aloud, and heaved At his body. But it lay bereaved Of any power. He could not wait till night.... And he lay still. Blood swam across his sight. Then with a groan: "No luck ever! Well, I must die alone." Occasional rifles cracked. A cloud that shone, Gold-rimmed, blackened the sun and then was gone.... The sun still smiled. The grass sang in its play. Someone whistled: "Over the hills and far away." Gates watched silently the swift, swift sun Burning his life before it was begun.... Suddenly he heard Corporal Timmins' voice: "Now then, 'Urry up with that tea." "Hi Ginger!" "Bill!" His men! Timmins and Jones and Wilkinson (the 'bard'), And Hughes and Simpson. It was hard Not to see them: Wilkinson, stubby, grim, With his "No, sir," "Yes, sir," and the slim Because his smiling left eye always blinked) And Corporal Timmins, straight and blonde and wise, With his quiet-scanning, level, hazel eyes; And all the others ... tunics that didn't fit.... A dozen different sorts of eyes. O it Was hard to lie there! Yet he must. But no: "I've got to die. I'll get to them. I'll go." Inch by inch he fought, breathless and mute, Dragging his carcase like a famished brute.... His head was hammering, and his eyes were dim; A bloody sweat seemed to ooze out of him And freeze along his spine.... Then he'd lie still Before another effort of his will Took him one nearer yard. The parapet was reached. He could not rise to it. A lookout screeched: "Mr. Gates!" Three figures in one breath Leaped up. Two figures fell in toppling death; And Gates was lifted in. "Who's hit?" said he. "Timmins and Jones." "Why did they that for me?— And silently watched. He twitched. They heard him moan "Why for me?" His eyes roamed round, and none replied. "I see it was alone I should have died." They shook their heads. Then, "Is the doctor here?" "He's coming, sir; he's hurryin', no fear." "No good.... Lift me." They lifted him. He smiled and held his arms out to the dim, And in a moment passed beyond their ken, Hearing him whisper, "O my men, my men!" In Hospital, London, Autumn, 1915. IV.—BEHIND THE LINES: NIGHT, FRANCEAt the cross-roads I halt And stand stock-still.... The linked and flickering constellations climb Slowly the spread black heaven's immensity. The wind wanders like a thought at fault. Within the close-shuttered cottage nigh I hear—while its fearful, ag'd master sleeps like the dead— A slow clock chime With solemn thrill The most sombre hour of time, And see stand in the cottage's garden chill The two white crosses, one at each grave's head.... O France, France, France! I loved you, love you still; But, Oh! why took you not my life instead? V.—AT THE WARSNow that I am ta'en away, And may not see another day, What is it to my eye appears? What sound rings in my stricken ears? Not even the voice of any friend Or eyes beloved-world-without-end, But scenes and sounds of the countryside In far England across the tide: An upland field when Spring's begun, Mellow beneath the evening sun.... A circle of loose and lichened wall Over which seven red pines fall.... An orchard of wizen blossoming trees Wherein the nesting chaffinches Begin again the self-same song All the late April day-time long.... Paths that lead a shelving course Between the chalk scarp and the gorse By English downs; and, O! too well I hear the hidden, clanking bell Twilight of the huge empty down.... Soon blotted out! for now a lane Glitters with warmth of May-time rain, And on a shooting briar I see A yellow bird who sings to me. O yellow-hammer, once I heard Thy yaffle when no other bird Could to my sunk heart comfort bring; But now I would not have thee sing, So sharp thy note is with the pain Of England I may not see again! Yet sing thy song: there answereth Deep in me a voice which saith: "The gorse upon the twilit down, The English loam so sunset brown, The bowed pines and the sheep-bells' clamour, The wet, lit lane and the yellow-hammer, The orchard and the chaffinch song, Only to the Brave belong. And he shall lose their joy for aye If their price he cannot pay, Who shall find them dearer far Enriched by blood after long War." VI.—OUT OF TRENCHES: THE BARN, TWILIGHTVII.—BATTERY MOVING UP TO A NEW POSITION |
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