Trench Duty

Related poetry:

1. Duty Surviving Self-Love Unchanged within, to see all changed without, Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt. Yet why at others’ Wanings should’st thou fret? Then only might’st thou feel a just regret, Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light In selfish forethought of neglect and slight. O wiselier then, from feeble yearnings […]...
2. The Stretcher-Bearer My stretcher is one scarlet stain, And as I tries to scrape it clean, I tell you wot I’m sick with pain For all I’ve ‘eard, for all I’ve seen; Around me is the ‘ellish night, And as the war’s red rim I trace, I wonder if in ‘Eaven’s height, Our God don’t turn away […]...
3. The Dead-Beat He dropped, more sullenly than wearily, Lay stupid like a cod, heavy like meat, And none of us could kick him to his feet; Just blinked at my revolver, blearily; Didn’t appear to know a war was on, Or see the blasted trench at which he stared. “I’ll do ’em in,” he whined, “If this […]...
4. The wounded angel (from a painting by hugo simberg) Those who bear the wounded angel Are they honoured or destroyed Far beyond their comprehension Are the warfares of the void Angels have a sheen to lift them Well above the bloody battles Human beings give their hurts to Divines don’t need such tittle-tattles Yet this angel has been […]...
5. On The Wire O God, take the sun from the sky! It’s burning me, scorching me up. God, can’t You hear my cry? Water! A poor, little cup! It’s laughing, the cursed sun! See how it swells and swells Fierce as a hundred hells! God, will it never have done? It’s searing the flesh on my bones; It’s […]...
6. Devotion to Duty I was near the King that day. I saw him snatch And briskly scan the G. H. Q. dispatch. Thick-voiced, he read it out. (His face was grave.) ‘This officer advanced with the first wave, ‘And when our first objective had been gained, ‘(Though wounded twice), reorganized the line: ‘The spirit of the troops was […]...
7. The Broken Tryst That day a fire was in my blood; I could have sung: joy wrapt me round; The men I met seemed all so good, I scarcely knew I trod the ground. How easy seemed all toil! I laughed To think that once I hated it. The sunlight thrilled like wine, I quaffed Delight, divine and […]...
8. To Jane The keen stars were twinkling, And the fair moon was rising among them, Dear Jane. The guitar was tinkling, But the notes were not sweet till you sung them Again. As the moon’s soft splendour O’er the faint cold starlight of Heaven Is thrown, So your voice most tender To the strings without soul had […]...
9. The Artist's Duty So it is the duty of the artist to discourage all traces of shame To extend all boundaries To fog them in right over the plate To kill only what is ridiculous To establish problem To ignore solutions To listen to no one To omit nothing To contradict everything To generate the free brain To […]...
10. Awake, My Heart Awake, my heart, to be loved, awake, awake! The darkness silvers away, the morn doth break, It leaps in the sky: unrisen lustres slake The o’ertaken moon. Awake, O heart, awake! She too that loveth awaketh and hopes for thee: Her eyes already have sped the shades that flee, Already they watch the path thy […]...
11. Attack AT dawn the ridge emerges massed and dun In the wild purple of the glow’ring sun, Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud The menacing scarred slope; and, one by one, Tanks creep and topple forward to the wire. The barrage roars and lifts. Then, clumsily bowed With bombs and guns and shovels and […]...
12. Child and mother O mother-my-love, if you’ll give me your hand, And go where I ask you to wander, I will lead you away to a beautiful land, The Dreamland that’s waiting out yonder. We’ll walk in a sweet posie-garden out there, Where moonlight and starlight are streaming, And the flowers and the birds are filling the air […]...
13. A City's Death By Fire After that hot gospeller has levelled all but the churched sky, I wrote the tale by tallow of a city’s death by fire; Under a candle’s eye, that smoked in tears, I Wanted to tell, in more than wax, of faiths that were snapped like wire. All day I walked abroad among the rubbled tales, […]...
14. To Any Dead Officer Well, how are things in Heaven? I wish you’d say, Because I’d like to know that you’re all right. Tell me, have you found everlasting day, Or been sucked in by everlasting night? For when I shut my eyes your face shows plain; I hear you make some cheery old remark – I can rebuild […]...
15. Corporal Stare Back from the line one night in June, I gave a dinner at Bethune – Seven courses, the most gorgeous meal Money could buy or batman steal. Five hungry lads welcomed the fish With shouts that nearly cracked the dish; Asparagus came with tender tops, Strawberries in cream, and mutton chops. Said Jenkins, as my […]...
16. The Soul of the City Receives the Gift of the Holy Spirit A BROADSIDE DISTRIBUTED IN SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS Censers are swinging, Over the town; Censers are swinging, Look overhead! Censers are swinging, Heaven comes down. City, dead city, Awake from the dead! Censers, tremendous, Gleam overhead. Wind-harps are ringing, Wind-harps unseen- Calling and calling:- “Wake from the dead. Rise, little city, Shine like a queen.” Soldiers of […]...
17. The New Mistress “Oh, sick I am to see you, will you never let me be? You may be good for something, but you are not good for me. Oh, go where you are wanted, for you are not wanted here. And that was all the farewell when I parted from my dear. “I will go where I […]...
18. Peleg Poague Horses and men are just alike. There was my stallion, Billy Lee, Black as a cat and trim as a deer, With an eye of fire, keen to start, And he could hit the fastest speed Of any racer around Spoon River. But just as you’d think he couldn’t lose, With his lead of fifty […]...
19. The Town Marshal The Prohibitionists made me Town Marshal When the saloons were voted out, Because when I was a drinking man, Before I joined the church, I killed a Swede At the saw-mill near Maple Grove. And they wanted a terrible man, Grim, righteous, strong, courageous, And a hater of saloons and drinkers, To keep law and […]...
20. The House Of Dust: Part 02: 03: Interlude The warm sun dreams in the dust, the warm sun falls On bright red roofs and walls; The trees in the park exhale a ghost of rain; We go from door to door in the streets again, Talking, laughing, dreaming, turning our faces, Recalling other times and places. . . We crowd, not knowing why, […]...
21. Sick Leave When I’m asleep, dreaming and lulled and warm,- They come, the homeless ones, the noiseless dead. While the dim charging breakers of the storm Bellow and drone and rumble overhead, Out of the gloom they gather about my bed. They whisper to my heart; their thoughts are mine. ‘Why are you here with all your […]...
22. The Immortals I killed them, but they would not die. Yea! all the day and all the night For them I could not rest or sleep, Nor guard from them nor hide in flight. Then in my agony I turned And made my hands red in their gore. In vain – for faster than I slew They […]...
23. In Romney Marsh As I went down to Dymchurch Wall, I heard the South sing o’er the land I saw the yellow sunlight fall On knolls where Norman churches stand. And ringing shrilly, taut and lithe, Within the wind a core of sound, The wire from Romney town to Hythe Along its airy journey wound. A veil of […]...
24. In a Boat See the stars, love, In the water much clearer and brighter Than those above us, and whiter, Like nenuphars. Star-shadows shine, love, How many stars in your bowl? How many shadows in your soul, Only mine, love, mine? When I move the oars, love, See how the stars are tossed, Distorted, the brightest lost. -So […]...
25. Twilight by the Cabin DUSK, a pearl-grey river, o’er Hill and vale puts out the day- What do you wonder at, asthore, What’s away in yonder grey? Dark the eyes that linger long- Dream-fed heart, awake, come in, Warm the hearth and gay the song: Love with tender words would win. Fades the eve in dreamy fire, But the […]...
26. Escape at Bedtime The lights from the parlour and kitchen shone out Through the blinds and the windows and bars; And high overhead and all moving about, There were thousands of millions of stars. There ne’er were such thousands of leaves on a tree, Nor of people in church or the Park, As the crowds of the stars […]...
27. In The Garden One moment alone in the garden, Under the August skies; The moon had gone but the stars shone on, – Shone like your beautiful eyes. Away from the glitter and gaslight, Alone in the garden there, While the mirth of the throng, in laugh and song, Floated out on the air. You looked down through […]...
28. While Someone Telephones Wasted, wasted minutes that couldn’t be worse, Minutes of a barbaric condescension. Stare out the bathroom window at the fir-trees, At their dark needles, accretions to no purpose Woodenly crystallized, and where two fireflies Are only lost. Hear nothing but a train that goes by, must go by, like tension; Nothing. And wait: Maybe even […]...
29. From Blank to Blank From Blank to Blank A Threadless Way I pushed Mechanic feet To stop or perish or advance Alike indifferent If end I gained It ends beyond Indefinite disclosed I shut my eyes and groped as well ‘Twas lighter to be Blind...
30. When I'm Killed When I’m killed, don’t think of me Buried there in Cambrin Wood, Nor as in Zion think of me With the Intolerable Good. And there’s one thing that I know well, I’m damned if I’ll be damned to Hell! So when I’m killed, don’t wait for me, Walking the dim corridor; In Heaven or Hell, […]...
31. Small Wire My faith Is a great weight Hung on a small wire, As doth the spider Hang her baby on a thin web, As doth the vine, Twiggy and wooden, Hold up grapes Like eyeballs, As many angels Dance on the head of a pin. God does not need Too much wire to keep Him there, […]...
32. Roofs (For Amelia Josephine Burr) The road is wide and the stars are out And the breath of the night is sweet, And this is the time when wanderlust should seize upon my feet. But I’m glad to turn from the open road and the starlight on my Face, And to leave the splendour of out-of-doors […]...
33. The Madness Of King Goll I sat on cushioned otter-skin: My word was law from Ith to Emain, And shook at Inver Amergin The hearts of the world-troubling seamen, And drove tumult and war away From girl and boy and man and beast; The fields grew fatter day by day, The wild fowl of the air increased; And every ancient […]...
34. Ambulances Closed like confessionals, they thread Loud noons of cities, giving back None of the glances they absorb. Light glossy grey, arms on a plaque, They come to rest at any kerb: All streets in time are visited. Then children strewn on steps or road, Or women coming from the shops Past smells of different dinners, […]...
35. Fletcher McGee She took my strength by the minutes, She took my life by hours, She drained me like a fevered moon That saps the spinning world. The days went by like shadows, The minutes wheeled like stars. She took the pity from my heart, And made it into smiles. She was a hunk of sculptor’s clay, […]...
36. Covering Two Years This nothingness that feeds upon itself: Pencils that turn to water in the hand, Parts of a sentence, hanging in the air, Thoughts breaking in the mind like glass, Blank sheets of paper that reflect the world Whitened the world that I was silenced by. There were two years of that. Slowly, Whatever splits, dissevers, […]...
37. Before the Battle Music of whispering trees Hushed by a broad-winged breeze Where shaken water gleams; And evening radiance falling With reedy bird-notes calling. O bear me safe through dark, you low-voiced streams. I have no need to pray That fear may pass away; I scorn the growl and rumble of the fight That summons me from cool […]...
38. Under A Telephone Pole I AM a copper wire slung in the air, Slim against the sun I make not even a clear line of shadow. Night and day I keep singing humming and thrumming: It is love and war and money; it is the fighting and the Tears, the work and want, Death and laughter of men and […]...
39. After The Storm There are so many islands! As many islands as the stars at night On that branched tree from which meteors are shaken Like falling fruit around the schooner Flight. But things must fall, and so it always was, On one hand Venus, on the other Mars; Fall, and are one, just as this earth is […]...
40. When You Are Old When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But […]...