Something flutters in my eyes.
Up stands my hair,
I clutch at air,
I must wake. It’s the nightmare!
No, some warlock’s spell has bound me,
Creatures hop around, around me,
Hop and scream – it is a dream.
Dream and Life like brothers seem.
I must make the holy sign:
Warlocks waste away and pine
At the sign – they waste and pine.
Are these fingers thine or mine?
Move, you fingers, do my will;
Mark the sign for good or ill,
On my breast the crosses make.
At the sign, they waste, they pine.
God be praised! I am awake.
THE DRAGON-FLY
Who’d drag the yet unopened lily-bud
Slim stalk far-trailing, from the lake-floor up,
To desecrate the gold and silver cup
With oozy slime and black befouling mud?
Not I, by Hera! Like the dragon-fly
In blue and sable would I skim instead
Where lap the waves around the lily-bed,
Desiring nought but only to be nigh.
BOY-MORALITY
I have apples in a very pleasant orchard
But I may not eat thereof.
I have shining fish in a blue-watered lake:
They are easily taken in the meshes of a net,
But their flesh is poison.
I have deer in a scented pine-forest
It is good sport hunting them with bows:
Their venison is tender as the flesh of young lambs,
But whoso eateth, dyeth.
The load that I dragged uphill has slipped backward:
The rope has run scorching through my hands.
I must now return to the hill’s very bottom,
And the toil upward will be harder than ever before.
When to this spot I have again dragged my burden,
I shall remember my former folly, and all that ensued.
I shall strengthen my heart with a high endeavour,
And with my hands shall I take a surer hold.
I have apples in a very pleasant orchard,
I have shining fish in a blue-watered lake,
I have deer in a pine-scented forest,
But I may not eat lest I die.
THE CORACLE
The youngest poet launched his boat
A wattle-laboured coracle,
He sang for joy to feel it float:
‘A miracle! A coracle!
I have launched a boat, I feel it float,
And all the waves cry miracle.
‘I wrenched the wattles from their tree
For the weaving of my coracle,
I thumped the slimy clay, and see!
A miracle! A coracle!
I have built a boat, I feel it float,
And all the land cries miracle.
‘With patient care her ribs I wove,
My beautiful new coracle,
With clumsy fingers taught by love –
A miracle, my coracle!
I have built a boat, I feel it float,
And all the air cries miracle.’
THE LAST DROP
The fires are heated, watch Old Age
Crowd up to hear the torture-cry:
In sacrifice for private rage
He has sentenced Youth to die.
But Youth in love with fire and smoke
Hugs the hot coals to his heart,
And dies still laughing at the joke
That his delight shall make Age smart.
A moral, gentle sirs, who stop
At home and fight to the last drop!
For look, Old Age weeps for the dead,
Shivers and coughs and howls ‘Bread, Bread!’
TRENCH LIFE
Fear never dies, much as we laugh at fear
For pride’s sake and for other cowards’ sakes,
And when we see some new Death, bursting near,
Rip those that laugh in pieces, God! it shakes
Sham fortitude that went so proud at first,
And stops the clack of mocking tongues awhile
Until (o pride, pride!) at the next shell-burst
Cowards dare mock again and twist a smile.
Yet we who once, before we came to fight,
Drowned our prosperity in a waste of grief,
Contrary now find such perverse delight
In utter fear and misery, that Belief
Blossoms from mud, and under the rain’s whips,
Flagellant-like we writhe with laughing lips.
THROUGH THE PERISCOPE†
Trench stinks of shallow-buried dead
Where Tom stands at the periscope,
Tired out. After nine months he’s shed
All fear, all faith, all hate, all hope.
Sees with uninterested eye
Beyond the barbed wire, a gay bed
Of scarlet poppies and the lie
Of German trench behind that red: –
Six poplar trees…a rick…a pond
A ruined hamlet and a mine…
More trees, more houses and beyond
La Bassée spire in gold sunshine.
The same thoughts always haunt his brain,
Two sad, one scarcely comforting,
First second third and then again
The first and the second silly thing.
The first ‘It’s now nine months and more
Since I’ve drunk British beer’ the second
‘The last few years of this mad war
Will be the cushiest, I’ve reckoned’
The third ‘The silly business is
I’ll only die in the next war,
Suppose by luck I get thro’ this,
Just ‘cause I wasn’t killed before.’
Quietly laughs, and at that token
The first thought should come round again
But crack!
The weary circle’s broken
And a bullet tears thro’ the tired brain.
MACHINE GUN FIRE: CAMBRIN
(September 25 1915)
The torn line wavers, breaks, and falls.
‘Get up, come on!’ the captain calls
‘Get up, the Welsh, and on we go!’
(Christ, that my lads should fail me so!)
A dying boy grinned up and said:
‘The whole damned company, sir; it’s dead.’
‘Come on! Cowards!’ bawled the captain, then
Fell killed, among his writhing men.
THE FUSILIER – (For Peter)
I left the heated mess-room, the drinkers and the cardplayers
My jolly brother officers all laughing and drinking
And giving them goodnight, I shut the door behind me
Stepped quickly past the corner and came upon the wind.
A strong wind a steady wind a cool wind was blowing
And flowed like a waterflood about the steamy windows
And washed against my face, and bore on me refreshfully:
Its good to step out into the beautiful wind!
But giving goodnight to that gallant hearty company
And walking all alone through the greyness of evening
The sparkle of wine and the quick fire went out of me
My gay whistle faded and left me heavy hearted
Remembering the last time I’d seen you and talked with you –
(Its seldom the Fusilier goes twice across the parapet
Twice across the parapet, returning safe again)
Yet Life’s the heated messroom and when I go under
That cool wind will blow away the Fusilier, the furious
The callous rough ribald-tongue the Fusilier captain
The gallant merry Fusilier that drank in the messroom
He’ll drain his glass, nod good-night and out into the wind,
; While the quiet one the poet the lover remaining
Will meet you little singer and go with you and keep you
And turn away bad women and spill the cup of poison
And fill your heart with beauty and teach you to love.
Forget, then, the Fusilier: you’ll never understand him,
You’ll never love a Regiment as he has learned to love one
Forget the Fusilier: there are others will remember him
In the jolly old mess-room, the pleasant idle messroom
But for you let the strong sea wind blow him away.
O
What is that colour on the sky
Remotely hinting long-ago,
That splendid apricot-silver? Why,
That was the colour of my ‘O’ –
It’s strange I can’t forget –
In my first alphabet.
TO MY UNBORN SON†
A Dream
Last night, my son, your pretty mother came
Bravely into the forest of my dreams:
I laughed, and sprang to her with feet of flame,
And kissed her on the lips: how queer it seems
That the first power of woman-love should leap
So sudden on a grown man in his sleep!
She smiled, and kissed me back, a lovely thing
Of slender limbs and yellow braided hair:
She set my slow heart madly fluttering,
Her silver beauty through the shadowed air.
But oh, I wish she’d told me at first sight,
Why she was breaking on my dreams last night!
For tears to kisses suddenly succeeded,
And she was pleading, pleading, son, for you:
‘Oh, let me have my little child,’ she pleaded,
‘Give me my child, as you alone can do.’
And, oh, it hurt me, turning a deaf ear,
To say ‘No, no!’ and ‘No, no, no!’ to her.
I was most violent, I was much afraid
She’d buy my freedom with a kiss or curl,
And when she saw she’d die a sad old maid,
She wept most piteously, poor pretty girl –
But still, if Day, recalling Night’s romance
Should write a sequel, child, you’ve got a chance.
RETURN
‘Farewell,’ the Corporal cried, ‘La Bassée trenches!
No Cambrins for me now, no more Givenchies,
And no more bloody brickstacks – God Almighty,
I’m back again at last to dear old Blighty.’
But cushy wounds don’t last a man too long,
And now, poor lad, he sings this bitter song:
‘Back to La Bassée, to the same old hell,
Givenchy, Cuinchey, Cambrin, Loos, Vermelles.’
THE SAVAGE STORY OF CARDONETTE†
To Cardonette, to Cardonette,
Back from the Marne the Bosches came
With hearts like lead, with feet that bled
To Cardonette in the morning.
They hurry fast through Cardonette:
No time to stop or ask the name,
No time to loot or rape or shoot
In Cardonette this morning.
They hurry fast through Cardonette,
But close behind with eyes of flame
The Turco steals upon their heels
Through Cardonette in the morning.
And half a mile from Cardonette
He caught those Bosches tired and lame,
He charged and broke their ranks like smoke
By Cardonette in the morning.
At Cardonette, at Cardonette,
He taught the Bosche a pretty game:
He cut off their ears for souvenirs
At Cardonette in the morning.
DIED OF WOUNDS†
And so they marked me dead, the day
That I turned twenty-one?
They counted me as dead, did they,
The day my childhood slipped away
And manhood was begun?
Oh, that was fit and that was right!
Now, Daddy Time, with all your spite,
Buffet me how you can,
You’ll never make a man of me
For I lie dead in Picardy,
Rather than grow to man.
Oh that was the right day to die
The twenty-fourth day of July!
God smiled
Beguiled
By a wish so wild,
And let me always stay a child.
SIX POEMS FROM ‘THE PATCHWORK FLAG’ (1918)
FOREWORD†
Here is a patchwork lately made
Of antique silk and flower-brocade
Old faded scraps in memory rich
Sewn each to each with featherstitch.
But when you stare aghast perhaps
At certain muddied khaki scraps
And trophy fragments of field-grey
Clotted and stained that shout dismay
At broidered birds and silken flowers;
Blame these black times: their fault, not ours.
LETTER TO S.S. FROM BRYN-Y-PIN†
Poor Fusilier aggrieved with fate
That lets you lag in France so late,
When all our friends of two years past
Are free of trench and wire at last
Dear lads, one way or the other done
With grim-eyed War and homeward gone
Crippled with wounds or daft or blind,
Or leaving their dead clay behind,
Where still you linger, lone and drear,
Last of the flock, poor Fusilier.
Now your brief letters home pretend
Anger and scorn that this false friend
This fickle Robert whom you knew
To writhe once, tortured just like you,
By world-pain and bound impotence
Against all Europe’s evil sense
Now snugly lurks at home to nurse
His wounds without complaint, and worse
Preaches ‘The Bayonet’ to Cadets
On a Welsh hill-side, grins, forgets.
That now he rhymes of trivial things
Using his tender nursery trick.
Though hourly yet confused and sick
From those foul shell-holes drenched in gas
The stumbling shades to Lethe pass –
‘Guilty’ I plead and by that token
Confess my haughty spirit broken
And my pride gone; now the least chance
Of backward thought begins a dance
Of marionettes that jerk cold fear
Against my sick mind: either ear
Rings with dark cries, my frightened nose
Smells gas in scent of hay or rose,
I quake dumb horror, till again
I view that dread La Bassée plain
Drifted with smoke and groaning under
The echoing strokes of rival thunder
That crush surrender from me now.
Twelve months ago, on an oak bough
I hung, absolved of further task,
My dinted helmet, my gas mask,
My torn trench tunic with grim scars
Of war; so tamed the wrath of Mars
With votive gifts and one short prayer.
‘Spare me! Let me forget, O spare!’
‘Guilty’ I’ve no excuse to give
While in such cushioned ease I live
With Nancy and fresh flowers of June
And poetry and my young platoon,
Daring how seldom search behind
In those back cupboards of my mind
Where lurk the bogeys of old fear,
To think of you, to feel you near
By our old bond, poor Fusilier.
NIGHT MARCH†
Evening: beneath tall poplar trees
We soldiers eat and smoke and sprawl,
Wr
ite letters home, enjoy our ease,
When suddenly comes a ringing call.
‘Fall in!’ A stir, and up we jump,
Fold the love letter, drain the cup,
We toss away the Woodbine stump,
Snatch at the pack and jerk it up.
Soon with a roaring song we start,
Clattering along a cobbled road,
The foot beats quickly like the heart,
And shoulders laugh beneath their load.
Where are we marching? No one knows,
Why are we marching? No one cares.
For every man follows his nose,
Towards the gay West where sunset flares.
An hour’s march: we halt: forward again,
Wheeling down a small road through trees.
Curses and stumbling: puddled rain
Shines dimly, splashes feet and knees.
Silence, disquiet: from those trees
Far off a spirit of evil howls.
‘Down to the Somme’ wail the banshees
With the long mournful voice of owls.
The trees are sleeping, their souls gone,
But in this time of slumbrous trance
Old demons of the night take on
Their windy foliage, shudder and dance.
Out now: the land is bare and wide,
A grey sky presses overhead.
Down to the Somme! In fields beside
Our tramping column march the dead.
Our comrades who at Festubert
And Loos and Ypres lost their lives,
In dawn attacks, in noonday glare,
On dark patrols from sudden knives.
Like us they carry packs, they march
In fours, they sling their rifles too,
But long ago they’ve passed the arch
Of death where we must yet pass through.
Seven miles: we halt awhile, then on!
I curse beneath my burdening pack
Like Sinbad when with sigh and groan
He bore the old man on his back.
A big moon shines across the road,
Ten miles: we halt: now on again
Drowsily marching; the sharp goad
Blunts to a dumb and sullen pain.
A man falls out: we others go
Ungrudging on, but our quick pace
Full of hope once, grows dull, and slow:
No talk: nowhere a smiling face.
Above us glares the unwinking moon,
Beside us march the silent dead:
My train of thought runs mazy, soon
Curious fragments crowd my head.