Home ⇒ 📌Robert Graves ⇒ A Dead Boche
A Dead Boche
To you who’d read my songs of War
And only hear of blood and fame,
I’ll say (you’ve heard it said before)
ВЂќWar’s Hell! ” and if you doubt the same,
Today I found in Mametz Wood
A certain cure for lust of blood:
Where, propped against a shattered trunk,
In a great mess of things unclean,
Sat a dead Boche; he scowled and stunk
With clothes and face a sodden green,
Big-bellied, spectacled, crop-haired,
Dribbling black blood from nose and beard.
(2 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- Only A Boche We brought him in from between the lines: we’d better have let him lie; For what’s the use of risking one’s skin for a tyke that’s going to die? What’s the use of tearing him loose under a gruelling fire, When he’s shot in the head, and worse than dead, and all messed up on […]...
- Dead man's clothes Growing up, I propose, Is like wearing a dead man’s clothes. Death has a way of levelling the ground. I have found the closer your relationship The closer the fit; The unsettling bit is the fear Of not fitting the role, or where Your forbear made a name or leashed A reputation, which by imputation […]...
- Clothes chapter X And the weaver said, “Speak to us of Clothes.” And he answered: Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful. And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy you may find in them a harness and a chain. Would that you could meet the sun and the wind […]...
- Dead Cow Farm An ancient saga tells us how In the beginning the First Cow (For nothing living yet had birth But Elemental Cow on earth) Began to lick cold stones and mud: Under her warm tongue flesh and blood Blossomed, a miracle to believe: And so was Adam born, and Eve. Here now is chaos once again, […]...
- When You See Millions Of The Mouthless Dead When you see millions of the mouthless dead Across your dreams in pale battalions go, Say not soft things as other men have said, That you’ll remember. For you need not so. Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know It is not curses heaped on each gashed head? Nor tears. Their blind […]...
- Dead Man's Dump The plunging limbers over the shattered track Racketed with their rusty freight, Stuck out like many crowns of thorns, And the rusty stakes like sceptres old To stay the flood of brutish men Upon our brothers dear. The wheels lurched over sprawled dead But pained them not, though their bones crunched; Their shut mouths made […]...
- Memorial Day For The War Dead Memorial day for the war dead. Add now The grief of all your losses to their grief, Even of a woman that has left you. Mix Sorrow with sorrow, like time-saving history, Which stacks holiday and sacrifice and mourning On one day for easy, convenient memory. Oh, sweet world soaked, like bread, In sweet milk […]...
- 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 […]...
- God lay dead in heaven God lay dead in heaven; Angels sang the hymn of the end; Purple winds went moaning, Their wings drip-dripping With blood That fell upon the earth. It, groaning thing, Turned black and sank. Then from the far caverns Of dead sins Came monsters, livid with desire. They fought, Wrangled over the world, A morsel. But […]...
- What care the Dead, for Chanticleer What care the Dead, for Chanticleer What care the Dead for Day? ‘Tis late your Sunrise vex their face And Purple Ribaldry of Morning Pour as blank on them As on the Tier of Wall The Mason builded, yesterday, And equally as cool What care the Dead for Summer? The Solstice had no Sun Could […]...
- The Song of the Dead Hear now the Song of the Dead in the North by the torn berg-edges They that look still to the Pole, asleep by their hide-stripped sledges. Song of the Dead in the South in the sun by their skeleton horses, Where the warrigal whimpers and bays through the dust of the sere river-courses. Song of […]...
- Pensive on Her Dead Gazing, I Heard the Mother of All PENSIVE, on her dead gazing, I heard the Mother of All, Desperate, on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battle-fields gazing; (As the last gun ceased-but the scent of the powder-smoke linger’d;) As she call’d to her earth with mournful voice while she stalk’d: Absorb them well, O my earth, she cried-I charge […]...
- The Blind And The Dead She lay like a saint on her copper couch; Like an angel asleep she lay, In the stare of the ghoulish folks that slouch Past the Dead and sneak away. Then came old Jules of the sightless gaze, Who begged in the streets for bread. Each day he had come for a year of days, […]...
- I never hear that one is dead I never hear that one is dead Without the chance of Life Afresh annihilating me That mightiest Belief, Too mighty for the Daily mind That tilling its abyss, Had Madness, had it once or twice The yawning Consciousness, Beliefs are Bandaged, like the Tongue When Terror were it told In any Tone commensurate Would strike […]...
- Dead Love Dead love, by treason slain, lies stark, White as a dead stark-stricken dove: None that pass by him pause to mark Dead love. His heart, that strained and yearned and strove As toward the sundawn strives the lark, Is cold as all the old joy thereof. Dead men, re-risen from dust, may hark When rings […]...
- For a Dead Lady No more with overflowing light Shall fill the eyes that now are faded, Nor shall another’s fringe with night Their woman-hidden world as they did. No more shall quiver down the days The flowing wonder of her ways, Whereof no language may requite The shifting and the many-shaded. The grace, divine, definitive, Clings only as […]...
- That odd old man is dead a year That odd old man is dead a year We miss his stated Hat. ‘Twas such an evening bright and stiff His faded lamp went out. Who miss his antiquated Wick Are any hoar for him? Waits any indurated mate His wrinkled coming Home? Oh Life, begun in fluent Blood And consummated dull! Achievement contemplating thee […]...
- A Prayer to All the Dead among Mine Own People Are these your presences, my clan from Heaven? Are these your hands upon my wounded soul? Mine own, mine own, blood of my blood be with me, Fly by my path till you have made me whole!...
- Yes, the Dead Speak to Us YES, the Dead speak to us. This town belongs to the Dead, to the Dead and to the Wilderness. Back of the clamps on a fireproof door they hold the papers of the Dead in a house here And when two living men fall out, when one says the Dead spoke a Yes, and the […]...
- Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead Home they brought her warrior dead: She nor swooned, nor uttered cry: All her maidens, watching, said, ‘She must weep or she will die.’ Then they praised him, soft and low, Called him worthy to be loved, Truest friend and noblest foe; Yet she neither spoke nor moved. Stole a maiden from her place, Lightly […]...
- The Princess: A Medley: Home they Brought her Warrior Dead Home they brought her warrior dead: She nor swoon’d nor utter’d cry: All her maidens, watching, said, “She must weep or she will die.” Then they praised him, soft and low, Call’d him worthy to be loved, Truest friend and noblest foe; Yet she neither spoke nor moved. Stole a maiden from her place, Lightly […]...
- Grieg Being Dead GRIEG being dead we may speak of him and his art. Grieg being dead we can talk about whether he was any good or not. Grieg being with Ibsen, Björnson, Lief Ericson and the rest, Grieg being dead does not care a hell’s hoot what we say. Morning, Spring, Anitra’s Dance, He dreams them at […]...
- If I may have it, when it's dead If I may have it, when it’s dead, I’ll be contented so If just as soon as Breath is out It shall belong to me Until they lock it in the Grave, ‘Tis Bliss I cannot weigh For tho’ they lock Thee in the Grave, Myself can own the key Think of it Lover! I […]...
- Dead Boy The little cousin is dead, by foul subtraction, A green bough from Virginia’s aged tree, And none of the county kin like the transaction, Nor some of the world of outer dark, like me. A boy not beautiful, nor good, nor clever, A black cloud full of storms too hot for keeping, A sword beneath […]...
- To the Mother of a Dead Marine Your boy once touched me, yes. I knew you knew When your wet, reddened gaze drilled into me, Groped through my clothes for signs, some residue Of him-some lusciousness of mine that he Had craved, that might have driven his desire For things perilous, poisonous, out-of-bounds. Could I have been the beast he rode to […]...
- City Dead-House, The BY the City Dead-House, by the gate, As idly sauntering, wending my way from the clangor, I curious pause-for lo! an outcast form, a poor dead prostitute brought; Her corpse they deposit unclaim’d-it lies on the damp brick pavement; The divine woman, her body-I see the Body-I look on it alone, That house once full […]...
- Oh, Ye Dead! Oh, ye Dead! oh, ye Dead! whom we know by the light you give From your cold gleaming eyes, though you move like men who live, Why leave you thus your graves, In far off fields and waves, Where the worm and the sea-bird only know your bed, To haunt this spot where all Those […]...
- To a Dead Man Over the dead line we have called to you To come across with a word to us, Some beaten whisper of what happens Where you are over the dead line Deaf to our calls and voiceless. The flickering shadows have not answered Nor your lips sent a signal Whether love talks and roses grow And […]...
- A Dream Lies Dead A dream lies dead here. May you softly go Before this place, and turn away your eyes, Nor seek to know the look of that which dies Importuning Life for life. Walk not in woe, But, for a little, let your step be slow. And, of your mercy, be not sweetly wise With words of […]...
- Kaspar Is Dead alas our good kaspar is dead. Who will bury a burning flag in the wings of the clouds who will pull Black wool over our eyes day by day. Who will turn the coffee mills in the primal barrel. Who will lure the idyllic roe from his petrified paperbag. Who will sneeze oceanliners unbrellas windudders […]...
- The Dead Heart After I wrote this, a friend scrawled on this page, “Yes.” And I said, merely to myself, “I wish it could be for a Different seizure as with Molly Bloom and her ‘and Yes I said yes I will Yes.” It is not a turtle Hiding in its little green shell. It is not a […]...
- The March Of The Dead The cruel war was over oh, the triumph was so sweet! We watched the troops returning, through our tears; There was triumph, triumph, triumph down the scarlet glittering street, And you scarce could hear the music for the cheers. And you scarce could see the house-tops for the flags that flew between; The bells were […]...
- For the Union Dead “Relinquunt Omnia Servare Rem Publicam.” The old South Boston Aquarium stands In a Sahara of snow now. Its broken windows are boarded. The bronze weathervane cod has lost half its scales. The airy tanks are dry. Once my nose crawled like a snail on the glass; My hand tingled To burst the bubbles Drifting from […]...
- Dead Men's Love There was a damned successful Poet; There was a Woman like the Sun. And they were dead. They did not know it. They did not know their time was done. They did not know his hymns Were silence; and her limbs, That had served Love so well, Dust, and a filthy smell. And so one […]...
- The dead babe Last night, as my dear babe lay dead, In agony I knelt and said: “0 God! what have I done, Or in what wise offended Thee, That Thou should’st take away from me My little son? “Upon the thousand useless lives, Upon the guilt that vaunting thrives, Thy wrath were better spent! Why should’st Thou […]...
- He Wishes His Beloved Were Dead Were you but lying cold and dead, And lights were paling out of the West, You would come hither, and bend your head, And I would lay my head on your breast; And you would murmur tender words, Forgiving me, because you were dead: Nor would you rise and hasten away, Though you have the […]...
- Dead poet I’m sure it would be easier to survive as a dead poet, I mean it in the surmise that I won’t be tempted To revise or rewrite the poem I wrote last night, or the Poems I wrote last week (which make me cringe when I Read them again), or when I read poetry of […]...
- The Dead Village Here there is death. But even here, they say, Here where the dull sun shines this afternoon As desolate as ever the dead moon Did glimmer on dead Sardis, men were gay; And there were little children here to play, With small soft hands that once did keep in tune The strings that stretch from […]...
- Sonnet XXXV: Some, Misbelieving To Miracle Some, misbelieving and profane in love, When I do speak of miracles by thee, May say, that thou art flattered by me, Who only write my skill in verse to prove. See miracles, ye unbelieving, see A dumb-born Muse made t’express the mind, A cripple hand to write, yet lame by kind, One […]...
- The Fisherman Although I can see him still. The freckled man who goes To a grey place on a hill In grey Connemara clothes At dawn to cast his flies, It’s long since I began To call up to the eyes This wise and simple man. All day I’d looked in the face What I had hoped […]...