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clay to climb.
What murk of air remained stank old, and sour
With fumes of whizz-bangs, and the smell of men
Whoā€™d lived there years, and left their curse in the den,
If not their corpses.ā ā€Šā ā€¦
There we herded from the blast
Of whizz-bangs, but one found our door at last.
Buffeting eyes and breath, snuffing the candles.
And thud! flump! thud! down the steep steps came thumping
And splashing in the flood, deluging muckā ā€”
The sentryā€™s body; then his rifle, handles
Of old Boche bombs, and mud in ruck on ruck.
We dredged him up, for killed, until he whined
ā€œO sir, my eyesā ā€”Iā€™m blindā ā€”Iā€™m blind, Iā€™m blind!ā€
Coaxing, I held a flame against his lids
And said if he could see the least blurred light
He was not blind; in time heā€™d get all right.
ā€œI canā€™t,ā€ he sobbed. Eyeballs, huge-bulged like squids
Watch my dreams still; but I forgot him there
In posting next for duty, and sending a scout
To beg a stretcher somewhere, and floundering about
To other posts under the shrieking air.

Those other wretches, how they bled and spewed,
And one who would have drowned himself for goodā ā€”
I try not to remember these things now.
Let dread hark back for one word only: how
Half-listening to that sentryā€™s moans and jumps,
And the wild chattering of his broken teeth,
Renewed most horribly whenever crumps
Pummelled the roof and slogged the air beneathā ā€”
Through the dense din, I say, we heard him shout
ā€œI see your lights!ā€ But ours had long died out.

The Chances

I mind as ā€™ow the night afore that show
Us five got talkingā ā€”we was in the know,
ā€œOver the top to-morrer; boys, weā€™re for it,
First wave we are, first ruddy wave; thatā€™s tore it.ā€
ā€œAh well,ā€ says Jimmyā ā€”anā€™ ā€™eā€™s seen some scrappinā€™ā ā€”
ā€œThere ainā€™t more nor five things as can ā€™appen;
Ye get knocked out; else woundedā ā€”bad or cushy;
Scuppered; or nowt except yer feeling mushy.ā€

One of us got the knock-out, blown to chops.
Tā€™other was hurt, like, losinā€™ both ā€™is props.
Anā€™ one, to use the word of ā€™ypocrites,
ā€™Ad the misfortoon to be took by Fritz.
Now me, I wasnā€™t scratched, praise God Almighty
(Though next time please Iā€™ll thank ā€™im for a blighty),
But poor young Jim, ā€™eā€™s livinā€™ anā€™ ā€™eā€™s not;
ā€™E reckoned ā€™eā€™d five chances, anā€™ ā€™eā€™s ā€™ad;
ā€™Eā€™s wounded, killed, and prisā€™ner, all the lotā ā€”
The ruddy lot all rolled in one. Jimā€™s mad.

Anthem for Doomed Youth

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering riflesā€™ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirsā ā€”
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girlsā€™ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Apologia Pro Poemate Meo

I, too, saw God through mudā ā€”
The mud that cracked on cheeks when wretches smiled.
War brought more glory to their eyes than blood,
And gave their laughs more glee than shakes a child.

Merry it was to laugh thereā ā€”
Where death becomes absurd and life absurder.
For power was on us as we slashed bones bare
Not to feel sickness or remorse of murder.

I, too, have dropped off fearā ā€”
Behind the barrage, dead as my platoon,
And sailed my spirit surging, light and clear
Past the entanglement where hopes lay strewn;

And witnessed exultationā ā€”
Faces that used to curse me, scowl for scowl,
Shine and lift up with passion of oblation,
Seraphic for an hour; though they were foul.

I have made fellowshipsā ā€”
Untold of happy lovers in old song.
For love is not the binding of fair lips
With the soft silk of eyes that look and long,

By Joy, whose ribbon slipsā ā€”
But wound with warā€™s hard wire whose stakes are strong;
Bound with the bandage of the arm that drips;
Knit in the welding of the rifle-thong.

I have perceived much beauty
In the hoarse oaths that kept our courage straight;
Heard music in the silentness of duty;
Found peace where shell-storms spouted reddest spate.

Nevertheless, except you share
With them in hell the sorrowful dark of hell,
Whose world is but the trembling of a flare,
And heaven but as the highway for a shell,

You shall not hear their mirth:
You shall not come to think them well content
By any jest of mine. These men are worth
Your tears: You are not worth their merriment.

November 1917.

Wild with All Regrets (Another Version of A Terre.)

To Siegfried Sassoon

My arms have mutinied against meā ā€”brutes!
My fingers fidget like ten idle brats,
My backā€™s been stiff for hours, damned hours.
Death never gives his squad a Stand-at-ease.
I canā€™t read. There: itā€™s no use. Take your book.
A short life and a merry one, my buck!
We said weā€™d hate to grow dead old. But now,
Not to live old seems awful: not to renew
My boyhood with my boys, and teach ā€™em hitting,
Shooting and huntingā ā€”all the arts of hurting!
ā€”Well, thatā€™s what I learnt. That, and making money.
Your fifty years in store seem none too many;
But Iā€™ve five minutes. God! For just two years
To help myself to this good air of yours!
One Spring! Is one too hard to spare? Too long?
Spring air would find its own way to my lung,
And grow me legs as quick as lilac-shoots.

Yes, thereā€™s the orderly. Heā€™ll change the sheets
When Iā€™m lugged out, oh, couldnā€™t I do that?
Here in this coffin of a bed, Iā€™ve thought
Iā€™d like to kneel and sweep his floors for everā ā€”
And ask no nights off when the bustleā€™s over,
For Iā€™d enjoy the dirt; whoā€™s prejudiced
Against a grimed hand when his ownā€™s quite dustā ā€”
Less live than specks that in the sun-shafts turn?
Dear dustā ā€”in rooms, on roads, on facesā€™ tan!
Iā€™d love to be a sweepā€™s boy, black as Town;
Yes, or a muckman. Must I be his load?
A flea would do. If one chap wasnā€™t bloody,
Or went stone-cold, Iā€™d find another body.

Which

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