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John William Tuohy lives in Washington DC

If you can find a copy of Siegfried Sassoon's three part biography, you should read. It's well written and agood story



“And you have fixed my life – however short. You did not light me: I was always a mad comet; but you have fixed me.” Wilfred Owen, “Letter to Siegfried Sassoon,” 5 November 1917
Siegfried Sassoon

"The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon" is included below.

 "The Road" by Sassoon can be read free of charge at Project Gutenberg

  Siegfried Loraine Sassoon, CBE, MC (8 September 1886 – 1 September 1967) was an English poet, writer, and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both described the horrors of the trenches, and satirised the patriotic pretensions of those who, in Sassoon's view, were responsible for a jingoism-fuelled war.

 Sassoon became a focal point for dissent within the armed forces when he made a lone protest against the continuation of the war in his "Soldier's Declaration" of 1917, culminating in his admission to a military psychiatric hospital; this resulted in his forming a friendship with Wilfred Owen, who was greatly influenced by him. Sassoon later won acclaim for his prose work, notably his three-volume fictionalised autobiography, collectively known as the "Sherston trilogy".

Siegfried Sassoon was born and grew up in the neo-gothic mansion named "Weirleigh" (after its builder, Harrison Weir), in Matfield, Kent, to a Jewish father and an Anglo-Catholic mother. His father, Alfred Ezra Sassoon (1861–1895), son of Sassoon David Sassoon, was a member of the wealthy Baghdadi Jewish Sassoon merchant family. 

For marrying outside the faith, Alfred was disinherited. Siegfried's mother, Theresa, belonged to the Thornycroft family, sculptors responsible for many of the best-known statues in London—her brother was Sir Hamo Thornycroft. There was no German ancestry in Siegfried's family; his mother named him Siegfried because of her love of Wagner's operas. His middle name, Loraine, was the surname of a clergyman with whom she was friendly.

Siegfried was the first of three sons, the others being Michael and Hamo. When he was four years old his parents separated. During his father's weekly visits to the boys, Theresa locked herself in the drawing-room. In 1895 Alfred Sassoon died of tuberculosis.

Sassoon was educated at the New Beacon School, Sevenoaks, Kent; at Marlborough College, Marlborough, Wiltshire (where he was a member of Cotton House), and at Clare College, Cambridge, where from 1905 to 1907 he read history. He went down from Cambridge without a degree and spent the next few years hunting, playing cricket and writing verse: some he published privately. Since his father had been disinherited from the Sassoon fortune for marrying a non-Jew, Siegfried had only a small private fortune that allowed him to live modestly without having to earn a living (however, he would later be left a generous legacy by an aunt, Rachel Beer, allowing him to buy the great estate of Heytesbury House in Wiltshire.) His first published success, The Daffodil Murderer (1913), was a parody of John Masefield's The Everlasting Mercy. Robert Graves, in Good-Bye to All That describes it as a "parody of Masefield which, midway through, had forgotten to be a parody and turned into rather good Masefield."

Sassoon expressed his opinions on the political situation before the onset of the First World War thus—"France was a lady, Russia was a bear, and performing in the county cricket team was much more important than either of them". 

Sassoon wanted to play for Kent County Cricket Club; Kent Captain Frank Marchant was a neighbour of Sassoon. Siegfried often turned out for Bluehouses at the Nevill Ground, where he sometimes played alongside Arthur Conan Doyle. He also played cricket for his house at Marlborough College, once taking 7 wickets for 18 runs. Although an enthusiast, Sassoon was not good enough to play for Kent, but he played cricket for Matfield, and later for the Downside Abbey team, continuing into his seventies.

Motivated by patriotism, Sassoon joined the British Army just as the threat of a new European war was recognized, and was in service with the Sussex Yeomanry on 4 August 1914, the day the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland declared war on Germany. 

He broke his arm badly in a riding accident and was put out of action before even leaving England, spending the spring of 1915 convalescing. (Rupert Brooke, whom Siegfried had briefly met, died in April on the way to Gallipoli.) He was commissioned into the 3rd Battalion (Special Reserve), Royal Welch Fusiliers, as a second lieutenant on 29 May 1915. On 1 November his younger brother Hamo was killed in the Gallipoli Campaign, and in the same month Siegfried was sent to the 1st Battalion in France. 

There he met Robert Graves, and they became close friends. United by their poetic vocation, they often read and discussed each other's work. Though this did not have much perceptible influence on Graves's poetry, his views on what may be called 'gritty realism' profoundly affected Sassoon's concept of what constituted poetry.

 He soon became horrified by the realities of war, and the tone of his writing changed completely: where his early poems exhibit a Romantic, dilettantish sweetness, his war poetry moves to an increasingly discordant music, intended to convey the ugly truths of the trenches to an audience hitherto lulled by patriotic propaganda. Details such as rotting corpses, mangled limbs, filth, cowardice and suicide are all trademarks of his work at this time, and this philosophy of 'no truth unfitting' had a significant effect on the movement towards Modernist poetry.

Sassoon's periods of duty on the Western Front were marked by exceptionally brave actions, including the single-handed capture of a German trench in the Hindenburg Line. Armed with grenades, he scattered sixty German soldiers

He went over with bombs in daylight, under covering fire from a couple of rifles, and scared away the occupants. A pointless feat, since instead of signalling for reinforcements, he sat down in the German trench and began reading a book of poems which he had brought with him. When he went back he did not even report. Colonel Stockwell, then in command, raged at him. The attack on Mametz Wood had been delayed for two hours because British patrols were still reported to be out. "British patrols" were Siegfried and his book of poems. "I'd have got you a D.S.O., if you'd only shown more sense," stormed Stockwell.

Sassoon's bravery was inspiring to the extent that soldiers of his company said that they felt confident only when they were accompanied by him.[9] He often went out on night-raids and bombing patrols and demonstrated ruthless efficiency as a company commander. 

Deepening depression at the horror and misery the soldiers were forced to endure produced in Sassoon a paradoxically manic courage, and he was nicknamed "Mad Jack" by his men for his near-suicidal exploits. On 27 July 1916 he was awarded the Military Cross; the citation read:
For conspicuous gallantry during a raid on the enemy's trenches. He remained for 1½ hours under rifle and bomb fire collecting and bringing in our wounded. Owing to his courage and determination all the killed and wounded were brought in.

Robert Graves described Sassoon as engaging in suicidal feats of bravery. Sassoon was also later (unsuccessfully) recommended for the Victoria Cross.

Despite his decorations and reputation, in 1917 Sassoon decided to make a stand against the conduct of the war. One of the reasons for his violent anti-war feeling was the death of his friend David Cuthbert Thomas, who appears as "Dick Tiltwood" in the Sherston trilogy. Sassoon would spend years trying to overcome his grief.

At the end of a spell of convalescent leave, Sassoon declined to return to duty; instead, encouraged by pacifist friends such as Bertrand Russell and Lady Ottoline Morrell, he sent a letter to his commanding officer entitled Finished with the War: A Soldier’s Declaration. Forwarded to the press and read out in the House of Commons by a sympathetic member of parliament, the letter was seen by some as treasonous ("I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority") or at best as condemning the war government's motives ("I believe that the war upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation has now become a war of aggression and conquest"). 

Rather than court-martial Sassoon, the Under-Secretary of State for War, Ian Macpherson, decided that he was unfit for service and had him sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital near Edinburgh, where he was officially treated for neurasthenia ("shell shock").

Before declining to return to active service Sassoon had thrown the ribbon of his Military Cross into the river Mersey. According to his description of this incident in Memoirs of an Infantry Officer he did not, as one would infer from the context of his action, do this as a symbolic rejection of militaristic values, but simply out of the need to perform some destructive act in catharsis of the black mood which was afflicting him; one of his pre-war sporting trophies, had he had one to hand, would have served his purpose equally well.

The novel Regeneration, by Pat Barker, is a fictionalised account of this period in Sassoon's life, and was made into a film starring James Wilby as Sassoon and Jonathan Pryce as W. H. R. Rivers, the psychiatrist responsible for Sassoon's treatment. Rivers became a kind of surrogate father to the troubled young man, and his sudden death in 1922 was a major blow to Sassoon.

At Craiglockhart, Sassoon met Wilfred Owen, a fellow poet who would eventually exceed him in fame. It was thanks to Sassoon that Owen persevered in his ambition to write better poetry. A manuscript copy of Owen's Anthem for Doomed Youth containing Sassoon's handwritten amendments survives as testimony to the extent of his influence and is currently on display at London's Imperial War Museum. 

Sassoon became to Owen "Keats and Christ and Elijah"; surviving documents demonstrate clearly the depth of Owen's love and admiration for him. Both men returned to active service in France, but Owen was killed in 1918. Sassoon, despite all this, was promoted to lieutenant, and having spent some time out of danger in Palestine, eventually returned to the Front. On 13 July 1918, Sassoon was almost immediately wounded again—by friendly fire when he was shot in the head by a fellow British soldier who had mistaken him for a German near Arras, France. 

As a result, he spent the remainder of the war in Britain. By this time he had been promoted acting captain. He relinquished his commission on health grounds on 12 March 1919, but was allowed to retain the rank of captain. After the war, Sassoon was instrumental in bringing Owen's work to the attention of a wider audience. Their friendship is the subject of Stephen MacDonald's play, Not About Heroes.

Having lived for a period at Oxford, where he spent more time visiting literary friends than studying, he dabbled briefly in the politics of the Labour movement, and in 1919 took up a post as literary editor of the socialist Daily Herald. He lived at 54 Tufton Street, Westminster from 1919 to 1925; the house is no longer standing, but the location of his former home is marked by a memorial plaque.

During his period at the Herald, Sassoon was responsible for employing several eminent names as reviewers, including E. M. Forster and Charlotte Mew, and commissioned original material from "names" like Arnold Bennett and Osbert Sitwell. 

His artistic interests extended to music. While at Oxford he was introduced to the young William Walton, to whom he became a friend and patron. Walton later dedicated his Portsmouth Point overture to Sassoon in recognition of his financial assistance and moral support.

Sassoon later embarked on a lecture tour of the USA, as well as travelling in Europe and throughout Britain. He acquired a car, a gift from the publisher Frankie Schuster, and became renowned among his friends for his lack of driving skill, but this did not prevent him making full use of the mobility it gave him.

Sassoon was a great admirer of the Welsh poet Henry Vaughan. On a visit to Wales in 1923, he paid a pilgrimage to Vaughan's grave at Llansantffraed, Powys, and there wrote one of his best-known peacetime poems, "At the Grave of Henry Vaughan". The deaths of three of his closest friends - Edmund Gosse, Thomas Hardy and Frankie Schuster (the publisher) - within a short space of time, came as another serious setback to his personal happiness.
At the same time, Sassoon was preparing to take a new direction. 

While in America, he had experimented with a novel. In 1928, he branched out into prose, with Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, the anonymously-published first volume of a fictionalised autobiography, which was almost immediately accepted as a classic, bringing its author new fame as a humorous writer. 

The book won the 1928 James Tait Black Award for fiction. Sassoon followed it with Memoirs of an Infantry Officer (1930) and Sherston's Progress (1936). In later years, he revisited his youth and early manhood with three volumes of genuine autobiography, which were also widely acclaimed. These were The Old Century, The Weald of Youth and Siegfried's Journey.

Sassoon, having matured greatly as a result of his military service, continued to seek emotional fulfilment, initially in a succession of love affairs with men, including the landscape architectural and figure painter, draftsman and illustrator, William Park "Gabriel" Atkin,  actor Ivor Novello; Novello's former lover, the actor Glen Byam Shaw; German aristocrat Prince Philipp of Hesse; the writer Beverley Nichols; an effete aristocrat, the Hon. Stephen Tennant.  Only the last of these made a permanent impression, though Shaw remained his close friend throughout his life.

In September 1931, Sassoon rented and began to live at Fitz House, Teffont Magna, Wiltshire. In December 1933, to many people's surprise, he married Hester Gatty, who was many years his junior; this led to the birth of a child, something which he had long craved. This only child George (1936–2006), became a scientist, linguist and author, and was adored by Siegfried, who wrote several poems addressed to him. However, the marriage broke down after the Second World War, Sassoon apparently unable to find a compromise between the solitude he enjoyed and the companionship he craved.

Separated from his wife in 1945, Sassoon lived in seclusion at Heytesbury in Wiltshire, although he maintained contact with a circle which included E M Forster and J R Ackerley. One of his closest friends was the young cricketer Dennis Silk. He formed a close friendship with Vivien Hancock, headmistress of Greenways School at Ashton Gifford, which his son George attended. The relationship provoked Hester to make some strong accusations against Vivien Hancock, who responded with the threat of legal action

Siegfried Sassoon died one week before his 81st birthday, of stomach cancer, and is buried at St Andrew's Church, Mells, Somerset, close to Ronald Knox


Regeneration is a 1997 film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Pat Barker. The film is directed by Gillies MacKinnon. It was released as Behind the Lines in the USA in 1998. The film follows the stories of a number of Officers of the British Army during World War I who are brought together in Craiglockhart War Hospital where they are treated for various trauma. It features the story of Siegfried Sassoon, his open letter reprinted in The Times criticising the conduct of the war and his return to the front.


The film starts by referring to Siegfried Sassoon's open letter (Finished with the War: A Soldier’s Declaration) dated July 1917, inveighing "against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed".

 The letter has been published in The Times and has received much attention in England particularly because Sassoon is considered a hero for several (perhaps suicidally rash) acts of valour - and has been the recipient of the Military Cross which we see Sassoon throwing away.

With the string-pulling and guidance of Robert Graves, a fellow poet and friend of Sassoon, the army decides to send Sassoon to Craiglockhart War Hospital, a psychiatric facility in Scotland, rather than court-martialling him. At Craiglockhart, Sassoon meets Dr. William Rivers, a Freudian psychiatrist who encourages his patients to express their war memories as therapy.

There is no clear main character in this film, but there is more focus on several of the characters; notably, Billy Prior, Siegfried Sassoon and Dr. Rivers himself. A very important secondary character, Wilfred Owen, is linked to Sassoon’s storyline.

Prior, at first an unsympathetic character, presents a challenge to Dr Rivers, who needs to discover what experience in the trenches caused the loss of Prior's ability to speak. Prior regains his speech suddenly then goes into the town in search of female companionship and begins a relationship with Sarah, a munitions worker. He has a strong sense of social class, setting himself apart from the other officers ("public school toffs") and refers to incidents that have caused him to distrust the military authorities.

There are a number of references to the difference in treatment between the privates and the officers, including the most glaring, Craiglockhart itself which only caters for officers. When Prior is finally ready for hypnosis, he and Rivers discover that his trauma was caused by the death of one of Prior's men in the trench, blown to bits by a bomb.

Prior lost his power of speech after having picked up the eyeball of the killed private and asked what should be done with "this gobstopper". This seems strange to Prior who had expected his condition to be caused by some action for which he was responsible. He feels he has to return to active duty in the trenches to prove to himself and the world that he is as fully competent as before.

Sassoon becomes friends with another patient in the hospital, Wilfred Owen. Owen aspires to be a poet as well and he greatly respects Sassoon's work; Sassoon agrees to help Owen with his poetry.

Meanwhile, Doctor Rivers has taken a leave of absence from the hospital and visits Dr. Lewis Yealland’s practice in London. Dr. Yealland treats his patients, who are privates and not officers, not like traumatised human beings but like mere machines, which need to be repaired as quickly as possible.

 Rivers sits in on one of Yealland’s electroshock therapy sessions on a private named Callan, who, like Prior, has lost his speech. Rivers is repulsed by the brutality of the treatment, and back in Craiglockhart he continues to produce what Sassoon calls his "gentle miracles" but at the cost of his own mental health - in contrast to Yealland who seems to feel nothing towards his patients but is proud of his success in treating mutism.

Sassoon has also come to a very important decision. Although he still disagrees with the reasons for the continuation of the war, he decides to return to France in order to care for his men.

During the Review Board’s evaluation of Sassoon, Rivers is surprised by Sassoon's insistence that he hasn't changed his mind. As such he still fulfills the qualification of mental illness that landed him at Craiglockhart. On the other hand Sassoon did not truly qualify as mentally ill in the first place, and he strongly wishes to return to the war.

 When his opinion is needed, he qualifies Sassoon as being fit, and thereby qualified to return to war. Sassoon is seen soon after being injured whilst in a trench and laughing - to the bemused consternation of his men. 

The ambiguity of this scene (as to the seriousness of the injury) is only resolved when Rivers reads a letter from him after the end of hostilities.

In the meantime, Prior goes before the medical board and is assigned to home duties, probably because of his asthma, which means he cannot be sure in himself as to whether he is truly cured. He is last seen in bed with Sarah.

The final scenes show Wilfred Owen's body in France after the end of the conflict and Rivers' sadness on hearing of it. He is seen crying as he reads Owen's "The Parable of the Old Man and the Young" that Sassoon sent him.

 The visual motif of moving through a canal tunnel which has been Owen's dream is now resolved. Unlike other patients' dreams which are the shocking visualisations of the traumatic events which resulted in their breakdowns, Owen's is the premonition of his own death.


Poetry collections
The Daffodil Murderer (John Richmond: 1913)
The Old Huntsman (Heinemann: 1917)
The General (Denmark Hill Hospital, April 1917)
Does it Matter? (written: 1917)
Counter-Attack and Other Poems (Heinemann: 1918)
The Hero [Henry Holt, 1918]
Picture-Show (Heinemann: 1919)
War Poems (Heinemann: 1919)
Aftermath (Heinemann: 1920)
Recreations (privately printed: 1923)
Lingual Exercises for Advanced Vocabularians (privately printed: 1925)
Selected Poems (Heinemann: 1925)
Satirical Poems (Heinemann: 1926)
The Heart's Journey (Heinemann: 1928)
Poems by Pinchbeck Lyre (Duckworth: 1931)
The Road to Ruin (Faber and Faber: 1933)
Vigils (Heinemann: 1935)
Rhymed Ruminations (Faber and Faber: 1940)
Poems Newly Selected (Faber and Faber: 1940)
Collected Poems (Faber and Faber: 1947)
Common Chords (privately printed: 1950/1951)
Emblems of Experience (privately printed: 1951)
The Tasking (privately printed: 1954)
Sequences (Faber and Faber: 1956)
Lenten Illuminations (Downside Abbey: 1959)
The Path to Peace (Stanbrook Abbey Press: 1960)
Collected Poems 1908-1956 (Faber and Faber: 1961)
The War Poems ed. Rupert Hart-Davis (Faber and Faber: 1983)


Prose
Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man (Faber & Gwyer: 1928)
Memoirs of an Infantry Officer (Faber and Faber: 1930)
Sherston's Progress (Faber and Faber: 1936)
Complete Memoirs of George Sherston (Faber and Faber: 1937)
The Old Century and seven more years (Faber and Faber: 1938)
On Poetry (University of Bristol Press: 1939)
The Weald of Youth (Faber and Faber: 1942)
Siegfried's Journey, 1916-1920 (Faber and Faber: 1945)
Meredith (Constable: 1948) - Biography of George Meredith


THE WAR POEMS OF SIEGFRIED SASSOON


PRELUDE: THE TROOPS

Dim, gradual thinning of the shapeless gloom
 Shudders to drizzling daybreak that reveals
 Disconsolate men who stamp their sodden boots
 And turn dulled, sunken faces to the sky
 Haggard and hopeless. They, who have beaten down
 The stale despair of night, must now renew
 Their desolation in the truce of dawn,
 Murdering the livid hours that grope for peace.


Yet these, who cling to life with stubborn hands,
 Can grin through storms of death and find a gap
 In the clawed, cruel tangles of his defence.
 They march from safety, and the bird-sung joy
 Of grass-green thickets, to the land where all
 Is ruin, and nothing blossoms but the sky
 That hastens over them where they endure
 Sad, smoking, flat horizons, reeking woods,
 And foundered trench-lines volleying doom for doom.


O my brave brown companions, when your souls
 Flock silently away, and the eyeless dead,
 Shame the wild beast of battle on the ridge,
 Death will stand grieving in that field of war
 Since your unvanquished hardihood is spent.
 And through some mooned Valhalla there will pass
 Battalions and battalions, scarred from hell;
 The unreturning army that was youth;
 The legions who have suffered and are dust.


DREAMERS

Soldiers are citizens of death's gray land,
   Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows.
 In the great hour of destiny they stand,
   Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows.
 Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win
   Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives.
 Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin
   They think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives.

I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats,
   And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain,
 Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats,
   And mocked by hopeless longing to regain
 Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats,
   And going to the office in the train.


THE REDEEMER

Darkness: the rain sluiced down; the mire was deep;
 It was past twelve on a mid-winter night,
 When peaceful folk in beds lay snug asleep:
 There, with much work to do before the light,
 We lugged our clay-sucked boots as best we might
 Along the trench; sometimes a bullet sang,
 And droning shells burst with a hollow bang;
 We were soaked, chilled and wretched, every one.
 Darkness: the distant wink of a huge gun.

I turned in the black ditch, loathing the storm;
 A rocket fizzed and burned with blanching flare,
 And lit the face of what had been a form
 Floundering in mirk. He stood before me there;
 I say that he was Christ; stiff in the glare,
 And leaning forward from his burdening task,
 Both arms supporting it; his eyes on mine
 Stared from the woeful head that seemed a mask
 Of mortal pain in Hell's unholy shine.

No thorny crown, only a woollen cap
 He wore—an English soldier, white and strong,
 Who loved his time like any simple chap,
 Good days of work and sport and homely song;
 Now he has learned that nights are very long,
 And dawn a watching of the windowed sky.
 But to the end, unjudging, he'll endure
 Horror and pain, not uncontent to die
 That Lancaster on Lune may stand secure.

He faced me, reeling in his weariness,
 Shouldering his load of planks, so hard to bear.
 I say that he was Christ, who wrought to bless
 All groping things with freedom bright as air,
 And with His mercy washed and made them fair.
 Then the flame sank, and all grew black as pitch,
 While we began to struggle along the ditch;
 And some one flung his burden in the muck,
 Mumbling: "O Christ Almighty, now I'm stuck!"


TRENCH DUTY

Shaken from sleep, and numbed and scarce awake,
 Out in the trench with three hours' watch to take,
 I blunder through the splashing mirk; and then
 Hear the gruff muttering voices of the men
 Crouching in cabins candle-chinked with light.
 Hark! There's the big bombardment on our right
 Rumbling and bumping; and the dark's a glare
 Of flickering horror in the sectors where
 We raid the Boche; men waiting, stiff and chilled,
 Or crawling on their bellies through the wire.
 "What? Stretcher-bearers wanted? Some one killed?"
 Five minutes ago I heard a sniper fire:
 Why did he do it?… Starlight overhead—
Blank stars. I'm wide-awake; and some chap's dead.


WIRERS

"Pass it along, the wiring party's going out"—
And yawning sentries mumble, "Wirers going out."
 Unravelling; twisting; hammering stakes with muffled thud,
 They toil with stealthy haste and anger in their blood.

The Boche sends up a flare. Black forms stand rigid there,
 Stock-still like posts; then darkness, and the clumsy ghosts
 Stride hither and thither, whispering, tripped by clutching snare
 Of snags and tangles.
                Ghastly dawn with vaporous coasts
 Gleams desolate along the sky, night's misery ended.

Young Hughes was badly hit; I heard him carried away,
 Moaning at every lurch; no doubt he'll die to-day.
 But we can say the front-line wire's been safely mended.


BREAK OF DAY

There seemed a smell of autumn in the air
 At the bleak end of night; he shivered there
 In a dank, musty dug-out where he lay,
 Legs wrapped in sand-bags,—lumps of chalk and clay
 Spattering his face. Dry-mouthed, he thought, "To-day
 We start the damned attack; and, Lord knows why,
 Zero's at nine; how bloody if I'm done in
 Under the freedom of that morning sky!"
 And then he coughed and dozed, cursing the din.

Was it the ghost of autumn in that smell
 Of underground, or God's blank heart grown kind,
 That sent a happy dream to him in hell?—
Where men are crushed like clods, and crawl to find
 Some crater for their wretchedness; who lie
 In outcast immolation, doomed to die
 Far from clean things or any hope of cheer,
 Cowed anger in their eyes, till darkness brims
 And roars into their heads, and they can hear
 Old childish talk, and tags of foolish hymns.

He sniffs the chilly air; (his dreaming starts).
 He's riding in a dusty Sussex lane
 In quiet September; slowly night departs;
 And he's a living soul, absolved from pain.
 Beyond the brambled fences where he goes
 Are glimmering fields with harvest piled in sheaves,
 And tree-tops dark against the stars grown pale;
 Then, clear and shrill, a distant farm-cock crows;
 And there's a wall of mist along the vale
 Where willows shake their watery-sounding leaves.
 He gazes on it all, and scarce believes
 That earth is telling its old peaceful tale;
 He thanks the blessed world that he was born….
Then, far away, a lonely note of the horn.

They're drawing the Big Wood! Unlatch the gate,
 And set Golumpus going on the grass:
He knows the corner where it's best to wait
 And hear the crashing woodland chorus pass;
 The corner where old foxes make their track
 To the Long Spinney; that's the place to be.
 The bracken shakes below an ivied tree,
 And then a cub looks out; and "Tally-o-back!"
 He bawls, and swings his thong with volleying crack,—
All the clean thrill of autumn in his blood,
 And hunting surging through him like a flood
 In joyous welcome from the untroubled past;
 While the war drifts away, forgotten at last.

Now a red, sleepy sun above the rim
 Of twilight stares along the quiet weald,
 And the kind, simple country shines revealed
 In solitudes of peace, no longer dim.
 The old horse lifts his face and thanks the light,
 Then stretches down his head to crop the green.
 All things that he has loved are in his sight;
 The places where his happiness has been
 Are in his eyes, his heart, and they are good.
 * * * * *
Hark! there's the horn: they're drawing the Big Wood.

A WORKING PARTY

Three hours ago he blundered up the trench,
 Sliding and poising, groping with his boots;
 Sometimes he tripped and lurched against the walls
 With hands that pawed the sodden bags of chalk.
 He couldn't see the man who walked in front;
 Only he heard the drum and rattle of feet
 Stepping along the trench-boards,—often splashing
 Wretchedly where the sludge was ankle-deep.

Voices would grunt, "Keep to your right,—make way!"
 When squeezing past the men from the front-line:
 White faces peered, puffing a point of red;
 Candles and braziers glinted through the chinks
 And curtain-flaps of dug-outs; then the gloom
 Swallowed his sense of sight; he stooped and swore
 Because a sagging wire had caught his neck.
 A flare went up; the shining whiteness spread
 And flickered upward, showing nimble rats,
 And mounds of glimmering sand-bags, bleached with rain;
 Then the slow, silver moment died in dark.

The wind came posting by with chilly gusts
 And buffeting at corners, piping thin
 And dreary through the crannies; rifle-shots
 Would split and crack and sing along the night,
 And shells came calmly through the drizzling air
 To burst with hollow bang below the hill.

Three hours ago he stumbled up the trench;
 Now he will never walk that road again:
 He must be carried back, a jolting lump
 Beyond all need of tenderness and care;
 A nine-stone corpse with nothing more to do.

He was a young man with a meagre wife
 And two pale children in a Midland town;
 He showed the photograph to all his mates;
 And they considered him a decent chap
 Who did his work and hadn't much to say,
 And always laughed at other people's jokes
 Because he hadn't any of his own.

That night, when he was busy at his job
 Of piling bags along the parapet,
 He thought how slow time went, stamping his feet,
 And blowing on his fingers, pinched with cold.

He thought of getting back by half-past twelve,
 And tot of rum to send him warm to sleep
 In draughty dug-out frowsty with the fumes
 Of coke, and full of snoring, weary men.

He pushed another bag along the top,
 Craning his body outward; then a flare
 Gave one white glimpse of No Man's Land and wire;
 And as he dropped his head the instant split
 His startled life with lead, and all went out.


STAND-TO: GOOD FRIDAY MORNING

I'd been on duty from two till four.
 I went and stared at the dug-out door.
 Down in the frowst I heard them snore.
 "Stand-to!" Somebody grunted and swore.
   Dawn was misty; the skies were still;
   Larks were singing, discordant, shrill;
   They seemed happy; but I felt ill.
 Deep in water I splashed my way
 Up the trench to our bogged front line.
 Rain had fallen the whole damned night.
 O Jesus, send me a wound to-day,
 And I'll believe in Your bread and wine,
 And get my bloody old sins washed white!


"IN THE PINK"

So Davies wrote: "This leaves me in the pink."
 Then scrawled his name: "Your loving sweetheart, Willie."
 With crosses for a hug. He'd had a drink
 Of rum and tea; and, though the barn was chilly,
 For once his blood ran warm; he had pay to spend.
 Winter was passing; soon the year would mend.

He couldn't sleep that night. Stiff in the dark
 He groaned and thought of Sundays at the farm,
 When he'd go out as cheerful as a lark
 In his best suit to wander arm-in-arm
 With brown-eyed Gwen, and whisper in her ear
 The simple, silly things she liked to hear.

And then he thought: to-morrow night we trudge
 Up to the trenches, and my boots are rotten.
 Five miles of stodgy clay and freezing sludge,
 And everything but wretchedness forgotten.
 To-night he's in the pink; but soon he'll die.
 And still the war goes on; he don't know why.


THE HERO

"Jack fell as he'd have wished," the Mother said,
 And folded up the letter that she'd read.
 "The Colonel writes so nicely." Something broke
 In the tired voice that quavered to a choke.
 She half looked up. "We mothers are so proud
 Of our dead soldiers." Then her face was bowed.

Quietly the Brother Officer went out.
 He'd told the poor old dear some gallant lies
 That she would nourish all her days, no doubt.
 For while he coughed and mumbled, her weak eyes
 Had shone with gentle triumph, brimmed with joy,
 Because he'd been so brave, her glorious boy.

He thought how "Jack," cold-footed, useless swine,
 Had panicked down the trench that night the mine
 Went up at Wicked Corner; how he'd tried
 To get sent home; and how, at last, he died,
 Blown to small bits. And no one seemed to care
 Except that lonely woman with white hair.


BEFORE THE BATTLE

Music of whispering trees
 Hushed by the 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
 Silence of marsh and pool,
 And yellow lilies islanded in light.
 O river of stars and shadows, lead me through the night.


June 25th, 1916.

THE ROAD

The road is thronged with women; soldiers pass
 And halt, but never see them; yet they're here—
A patient crowd along the sodden grass,
 Silent, worn out with waiting, sick with fear.
 The road goes crawling up a long hillside,
 All ruts and stones and sludge, and the emptied dregs
 Of battle thrown in heaps. Here where they died
 Are stretched big-bellied horses with stiff legs;
 And dead men, bloody-fingered from the fight,
 Stare up at caverned darkness winking white.

You in the bomb-scorched kilt, poor sprawling Jock,
 You tottered here and fell, and stumbled on,
 Half dazed for want of sleep. No dream could mock
 Your reeling brain with comforts lost and gone.
 You did not feel her arms about your knees,
 Her blind caress, her lips upon your head:
 Too tired for thoughts of home and love and ease,
 The road would serve you well enough for bed.


TWO HUNDRED YEARS AFTER

Trudging by Corbie Ridge one winter's night,
 (Unless old, hearsay memories tricked his sight),
 Along the pallid edge of the quiet sky
 He watched a nosing lorry grinding on,
 And straggling files of men; when these were gone,
 A double limber and six mules went by,
 Hauling the rations up through ruts and mud
 To trench-lines digged two hundred years ago.
 Then darkness hid them with a rainy scud,
 And soon he saw the village lights below.

But when he'd told his tale, an old man said
 That he'd seen soldiers pass along that hill;
 "Poor, silent things, they were the English dead
 Who came to fight in France and got their fill."


THE DREAM

I

Moonlight and dew-drenched blossom, and the scent
 Of summer gardens; these can bring you all
 Those dreams that in the starlit silence fall:
 Sweet songs are full of odours.
                                 While I went
 Last night in drizzling dusk along a lane,
 I passed a squalid farm; from byre and midden
 Came the rank smell that brought me once again
 A dream of war that in the past was hidden.

II
Up a disconsolate straggling village street
 I saw the tired troops trudge: I heard their feet.
 The cheery Q.M.S. was there to meet
 And guide our Company in….
                              I watched them stumble.
 Into some crazy hovel, too beat to grumble;
 Saw them file inward, slipping from their backs
 Rifles, equipment, packs.

On filthy straw they sit in the gloom, each face
 Bowed to patched, sodden boots they must unlace,
 While the wind chills their sweat through chinks and cracks.

III
I'm looking at their blistered feet; young Jones
 Stares up at me, mud-splashed and white and jaded;
 Out of his eyes the morning light has faded.
 Old soldiers with three winters in their bones
 Puff their damp Woodbines, whistle, stretch their toes
They can still grin at me, for each of 'em knows
 That I'm as tired as they are….
                                   Can they guess
 The secret burden that is always mine?—
Pride in their courage; pity for their distress;
 And burning bitterness
 That I must take them to the accursèd Line.


IV
I cannot hear their voices, but I see
 Dim candles in the barn: they gulp their tea,
 And soon they'll sleep like logs. Ten miles away
 The battle winks and thuds in blundering strife.
 And I must lead them nearer, day by day,
 To the foul beast of war that bludgeons life.


AT CARNOY

Down in the hollow there's the whole Brigade
 Camped in four groups: through twilight falling slow
 I hear a sound of mouth-organs, ill-played,
 And murmur of voices, gruff, confused, and low.
 Crouched among thistle-tufts I've watched the glow
 Of a blurred orange sunset flare and fade;
 And I'm content. To-morrow we must go
 To take some cursèd Wood…. O world God made!


July 3rd, 1916.

BATTALION RELIEF

"Fall in! Now, get a move on!" (Curse the rain.)
 We splash away along the straggling village,
 Out to the flat rich country green with June….
And sunset flares across wet crops and tillage,
 Blazing with splendour-patches. Harvest soon
 Up in the Line. "Perhaps the War'll be done
 By Christmas-time. Keep smiling then, old son!"

Here's the Canal: it's dusk; we cross the bridge.
 "Lead on there by platoons." The Line's a-glare
 With shell-fire through the poplars; distant rattle
 Of rifles and machine-guns. "Fritz is there!
 Christ, ain't it lively, Sergeant? Is't a battle?"
 More rain: the lightning blinks, and thunder rumbles.
 "There's overhead artillery," some chap grumbles.

"What's all this mob, by the cross-road?" (The guides)…. "Lead on with Number One" (And off they go.)

"Three-minute intervals." … Poor blundering files, Sweating and blindly burdened; who's to know If death will catch them in those two dark miles? (More rain.) "Lead on, Headquarters." (That's the lot.) "Who's that? O, Sergeant-major; don't get shot! And tell me, have we won this war or not?"

THE DUG-OUT

Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled,
 And one arm bent across your sullen cold
 Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you,
 Deep-shadow'd from the candle's guttering gold;
 And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder;
 Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head….
You are too young to fall asleep for ever;
 And when you sleep you remind me of the dead.


THE REAR-GUARD

(Hindenburg Line, April 1917.)

Groping along the tunnel, step by step,
 He winked his prying torch with patching glare
 From side to side, and sniffed the unwholesome air.

Tins, boxes, bottles, shapes too vague to know,
 A mirror smashed, the mattress from a bed;
 And he, exploring fifty feet below
 The rosy gloom of battle overhead.

Tripping, he grabbed the wall; saw some one lie
 Humped at his feet, half-hidden by a rug,
 And stooped to give the sleeper's arm a tug.
 "I'm looking for headquarters." No reply.
 "God blast your neck!" (For days he'd had no sleep,)
 "Get up and guide me through this stinking place."
 Savage, he kicked a soft, unanswering heap,
 And flashed his beam across the livid face
 Terribly glaring up, whose eyes yet wore
 Agony dying hard ten days before;
 And fists of fingers clutched a blackening wound.

Alone he staggered on until he found
 Dawn's ghost that filtered down a shafted stair
 To the dazed, muttering creatures underground
 Who hear the boom of shells in muffled sound.
 At last, with sweat of horror in his hair,
 He climbed through darkness to the twilight air,
 Unloading hell behind him step by step.


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 lad that I loved, there is rain on your face,
   And your eyes are blurred and sick like the plain."

I stood with the Dead…. They were dead; they were dead;
   My heart and my head beat a march of dismay;
 And gusts of the wind came dulled by the guns….
   "Fall in!" I shouted; "Fall in for your pay!"


SUICIDE IN TRENCHES

I knew a simple soldier boy
 Who grinned at life in empty joy,
 Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
 And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum
 With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
 He put a bullet through his brain.
 No one spoke of him again.

* * * * *
You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
 Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
 Sneak home and pray you'll never know
 The hell where youth and laughter go.

ATTACK

At dawn the ridge emerges massed and dun
 In the wild purple of the glowering 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 battle-gear,
 Men jostle and climb to meet the bristling fire.
 Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear,
 They leave their trenches, going over the top,
 While time ticks blank and busy on their wrists,
 And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists,
 Flounders in mud. O Jesu, make it stop!


COUNTER-ATTACK

We'd gained our first objective hours before
 While dawn broke like a face with blinking eyes,
 Pallid, unshaved and thirsty, blind with smoke.
 Things seemed all right at first. We held their line,
 With bombers posted, Lewis guns well placed,
 And clink of shovels deepening the shallow trench.
 The place was rotten with dead; green clumsy legs
 High-booted, sprawled and grovelled along the saps
 And trunks, face downward in the sucking mud,
 Wallowed like trodden sand-bags loosely filled;
 And naked sodden buttocks, mats of hair,
 Bulged, clotted heads, slept in the plastering slime.
 And then the rain began,—the jolly old rain!

A yawning soldier knelt against the bank,
 Staring across the morning blear with fog;
 He wondered when the Allemands would get busy;
 And then, of course, they started with five-nines
 Traversing, sure as fate, and never a dud.
 Mute in the clamour of shells he watched them burst
 Spouting dark earth and wire with gusts from hell,
 While posturing giants dissolved in drifts of smoke.

He crouched and flinched, dizzy with galloping fear,
 Sick for escape,—loathing the strangled horror
 And butchered, frantic gestures of the dead.

An officer came blundering down the trench:
 "Stand-to and man the fire-step!" On he went….
Gasping and bawling, "Fire-step … counter-attack!"
 Then the haze lifted. Bombing on the right
 Down the old sap: machine-guns on the left;
 And stumbling figures looming out in front.
 "O Christ, they're coming at us!" Bullets spat,
 And he remembered his rifle … rapid fire …
And started blazing wildly … then a bang
 Crumpled and spun him sideways, knocked him out
 To grunt and wriggle: none heeded him; he choked
 And fought the flapping veils of smothering gloom,
 Lost in a blurred confusion of yells and groans….
Down, and down, and down, he sank and drowned,
 Bleeding to death. The counter-attack had failed.


THE EFFECT

"The effect of our bombardment was terrific. One man told me he had never seen so many dead before."

War Correspondent.

"He'd never seen so many dead before." They sprawled in yellow daylight while he swore And gasped and lugged his everlasting load Of bombs along what once had been a road. "How peaceful are the dead." Who put that silly gag in some one's head?

"He'd never seen so many dead before."
 The lilting words danced up and down his brain,
 While corpses jumped and capered in the rain.
 No, no; he wouldn't count them any more….
The dead have done with pain:
 They've choked; they can't come back to life again.

When Dick was killed last week he looked like that,
 Flapping along the fire-step like a fish,
 After the blazing crump had knocked him flat….
 "How many dead? As many as ever you wish.
 Don't count 'em; they're too many.
 Who'll buy my nice fresh corpses, two a penny?"


REMORSE

Lost in the swamp and welter of the pit,
 He flounders off the duck-boards; only he knows
 Each flash and spouting crash,—each instant lit
 When gloom reveals the streaming rain. He goes
 Heavily, blindly on. And, while he blunders,
 "Could anything be worse than this?"—he wonders,
 Remembering how he saw those Germans run,
 Screaming for mercy among the stumps of trees:
 Green-faced, they dodged and darted: there was one
 Livid with terror, clutching at his knees….
Our chaps were sticking 'em like pigs…. "O hell!"
 He thought—"there's things in war one dare not tell
 Poor father sitting safe at home, who reads
 Of dying heroes and their deathless deeds."


IN AN UNDERGROUND DRESSING-STATION

Quietly they set their burden down: he tried
 To grin; moaned; moved his head from side to side.

* * * * *
He gripped the stretcher; stiffened; glared; and screamed,
 "O put my leg down, doctor, do!" (He'd got
 A bullet in his ankle; and he'd been shot
 Horribly through the guts.) The surgeon seemed
 So kind and gentle, saying, above that crying,
 "You must keep still, my lad." But he was dying.


DIED OF WOUNDS

His wet, white face and miserable eyes
 Brought nurses to him more than groans and sighs:
 But hoarse and low and rapid rose and fell
 His troubled voice: he did the business well.

The ward grew dark; but he was still complaining,
 And calling out for "Dickie." "Curse the Wood!
 It's time to go; O Christ, and what's the good?—
We'll never take it; and it's always raining."

I wondered where he'd been; then heard him shout,
 "They snipe like hell! O Dickie, don't go out" …
I fell asleep … next morning he was dead;
 And some Slight Wound lay smiling on his bed.


II

"THEY"

The Bishop tells us: "When the boys come back
 They will not be the same; for they'll have fought
 In a just cause: they lead the last attack
 On Anti-Christ; their comrade's blood has bought
 New right to breed an honourable race.
 They have challenged Death and dared him face to face."

"We're none of us the same!" the boys reply.
 "For George lost both his legs; and Bill's stone blind;
 Poor Jim's shot through the lungs and like to die;
 And Bert's gone syphilitic: you'll not find
 A chap who's served that hasn't found some change."
 And the Bishop said; "The ways of God are strange!"


BASE DETAILS

If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath,
   I'd live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
 And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
   You'd see me with my puffy petulant face,
 Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,
   Reading the Roll of Honour. "Poor young chap,"
 I'd say—"I used to know his father well;
   Yes, we've lost heavily in this last scrap."
 And when the war is done and youth stone dead,
 I'd toddle safely home and die—in bed.

 LAMENTATIONS

I found him in a guard-room at the Base.
 From the blind darkness I had heard his crying
 And blundered in. With puzzled, patient face
 A sergeant watched him; it was no good trying
 To stop it; for he howled and beat his chest.
 And, all because his brother had gone West,
 Raved at the bleeding war; his rampant grief
 Moaned, shouted, sobbed, and choked, while he was kneeling
 Half-naked on the floor. In my belief
 Such men have lost all patriotic feeling.


THE GENERAL

"Good-morning; good-morning!" the General said
 When we met him last week on our way to the Line,
 Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of 'em dead,
 And we're cursing his staff for incompetent swine.
 "He's a cheery old card," grunted Harry to Jack
 As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.

* * * * *
But he did for them both by his plan of attack.


HOW TO DIE

Dark clouds are smouldering into red
   While down the craters morning burns.
 The dying soldier shifts his head
   To watch the glory that returns:
 He lifts his fingers toward the skies
   Where holy brightness breaks in flame;
 Radiance reflected in his eyes,
   And on his lips a whispered name.

You'd think, to hear some people talk,
   That lads go West with sobs and curses,
 And sullen faces white as chalk,
   Hankering for wreaths and tombs and hearses.
 But they've been taught the way to do it
   Like Christian soldiers; not with haste
 And shuddering groans; but passing through it
   With due regard for decent taste.


EDITORIAL IMPRESSION

He seemed so certain "all was going well,"
 As he discussed the glorious time he'd had
 While visiting the trenches.
                              "One can tell
 You've gathered big impressions!" grinned the lad
 Who'd been severely wounded in the back
 In some wiped-out impossible Attack.
 "Impressions? Yes, most vivid! I am writing
 A little book called Europe on the Rack,
 Based on notes made while witnessing the fighting.
 I hope I've caught the feeling of 'the Line,'
 And the amazing spirit of the troops.
 By Jove, those flying-chaps of ours are fine!
 I watched one daring beggar looping loops,
 Soaring and diving like some bird of prey.
 And through it all I felt that splendour shine
 Which makes us win."
                      The soldier sipped his wine.
 "Ah, yes, but it's the Press that leads the way!"


FIGHT TO A FINISH

The boys came back. Bands played and flags were flying,
   And Yellow-Pressmen thronged the sunlit street
 To cheer the soldiers who'd refrained from dying,
   And hear the music of returning feet.
 "Of all the thrills and ardours War has brought,
 This moment is the finest." (So they thought.)

Snapping their bayonets on to charge the mob,
   Grim Fusiliers broke ranks with glint of steel.
 At last the boys had found a cushy job.

* * * * *

  I heard the Yellow-Pressmen grunt and squeal;
 And with my trusty bombers turned and went
 To clear those Junkers out of Parliament.


ATROCITIES

You told me, in your drunken-boasting mood,
 How once you butchered prisoners. That was good!
 I'm sure you felt no pity while they stood
 Patient and cowed and scared, as prisoners should.

How did you do them in? Come, don't be shy:
 You know I love to hear how Germans die,
 Downstairs in dug-outs. "Camerad!" they cry;
 Then squeal like stoats when bombs begin to fly.


* * * * *

And you? I know your record. You went sick
 When orders looked unwholesome: then, with trick
 And lie, you wangled home. And here you are,
 Still talking big and boozing in a bar.


THE FATHERS

Snug at the club two fathers sat,
 Gross, goggle-eyed, and full of chat.
 One of them said: "My eldest lad
 Writes cheery letters from Bagdad.
 But Arthur's getting all the fun
 At Arras with his nine-inch gun."

"Yes," wheezed the other, "that's the luck!
 My boy's quite broken-hearted, stuck
 In England training all this year.
 Still, if there's truth in what we hear,
 The Huns intend to ask for more
   Before they bolt across the Rhine."
 I watched them toddle through the door—
  These impotent old friends of mine.


"BLIGHTERS"

The house is crammed: tier beyond tier they grin
 And cackle at the Show, while prancing ranks
 Of harlots shrill the chorus, drunk with din;
 "We're sure the Kaiser loves the dear old Tanks!"

I'd like to see a Tank come down the stalls,
 Lurching to rag-time tunes, or "Home, sweet Home,"—
And there'd be no more jokes in Music-halls
 To mock the riddled corpses round Bapaume.


GLORY OF WOMEN

You love us when we're heroes, home on leave,
 Or wounded in a mentionable place.
 You worship decorations; you believe
 That chivalry redeems the war's disgrace.
 You make us shells. You listen with delight,
 By tales of dirt and danger fondly thrilled.
 You crown our distant ardours while we fight,
 And mourn our laurelled memories when we're killed.

You can't believe that British troops "retire"
 When hell's last horror breaks them, and they run,
 Trampling the terrible corpses—blind with blood.
O German mother dreaming by the fire,
 While you are knitting socks to send your son
 His face is trodden deeper in the mud.


THEIR FRAILTY

He's got a Blighty wound. He's safe; and then
   War's fine and bold and bright.
 She can forget the doomed and prisoned men
   Who agonize and fight.

He's back in France. She loathes the listless strain
   And peril of his plight.
 Beseeching Heaven to send him home again,
   She prays for peace each night.

Husbands and sons and lovers; everywhere
   They die; War bleeds us white.
 Mothers and wives and sweethearts,—they don't care
   So long as He's all right.


DOES IT MATTER?

Does it matter?—losing your legs?…
For people will always be kind,
 And you need not show that you mind
 When the others come in after football
 To gobble their muffins and eggs.

Does it matter?—losing your sight?…
There's such splendid work for the blind;
 And people will always be kind,
 As you sit on the terrace remembering
 And turning your face to the light.

Do they matter?—those dreams from the pit?…
You can drink and forget and be glad,
 And people won't say that you're mad;
 For they'll know that you've fought for your country,
 And no one will worry a bit.


SURVIVORS

No doubt they'll soon get well; the shock and strain
 Have caused their stammering, disconnected talk.
 Of course they're "longing to go out again,"—
These boys with old, scared faces, learning to walk,
 They'll soon forget their haunted nights; their cowed
 Subjection to the ghosts of friends who died,—
Their dreams that drip with murder; and they'll be proud
 Of glorious war that shatter'd all their pride….
Men who went out to battle, grim and glad;
 Children, with eyes that hate you, broken and mad.

CRAIGLOCKHART, Oct. 1917.

JOY-BELLS

Ring your sweet bells; but let them be farewells
   To the green-vista'd gladness of the past
 That changed us into soldiers; swing your bells
   To a joyful chime; but let it be the last.

What means this metal in windy belfries hung
   When guns are all our need? Dissolve these bells
 Whose tones are tuned for peace: with martial tongue
   Let them cry doom and storm the sun with shells.

Bells are like fierce-browed prelates who proclaim
   That "if our Lord returned He'd fight for us."
 So let our bells and bishops do the same,
   Shoulder to shoulder with the motor-bus.


ARMS AND THE MAN

Young Croesus went to pay his call
 On Colonel Sawbones, Caxton Hall:
 And, though his wound was healed and mended,
 He hoped he'd get his leave extended.

The waiting-room was dark and bare.
 He eyed a neat-framed notice there
 Above the fireplace hung to show
 Disabled heroes where to go
 For arms and legs; with scale of price,
 And words of dignified advice
 How officers could get them free.

Elbow or shoulder, hip or knee,—
Two arms, two legs, though all were lost,
 They'd be restored him free of cost.

Then a Girl-Guide looked in to say,
 "Will Captain Croesus come this way?"


WHEN I'M AMONG A BLAZE OF LIGHTS …

When I'm among a blaze of lights,
 With tawdry music and cigars
 And women dawdling through delights,
 And officers at cocktail bars,—
Sometimes I think of garden nights
 And elm trees nodding at the stars.

I dream of a small firelit room
 With yellow candles burning straight,
 And glowing pictures in the gloom,
 And kindly books that hold me late.
 Of things like these I love to think
 When I can never be alone:
 Then some one says, "Another drink?"—
And turns my living heart to stone.


THE KISS

To these I turn, in these I trust;
 Brother Lead and Sister Steel.
 To his blind power I make appeal;
 I guard her beauty clean from rust.

He spins and burns and loves the air,
 And splits a skull to win my praise;
 But up the nobly marching days
 She glitters naked, cold and fair.

Sweet Sister, grant your soldier this;
 That in good fury he may feel
 The body where he sets his heel
 Quail from your downward darting kiss.


THE TOMBSTONE-MAKER

He primmed his loose red mouth, and leaned his head
 Against a sorrowing angel's breast, and said:
 "You'd think so much bereavement would have made
 Unusual big demands upon my trade.
 The War comes cruel hard on some poor folk—
Unless the fighting stops I'll soon be broke."

He eyed the Cemetery across the road—
"There's scores of bodies out abroad, this while,
 That should be here by rights; they little know'd
 How they'd get buried in such wretched style."

I told him, with a sympathetic grin,
 That Germans boil dead soldiers down for fat;
 And he was horrified. "What shameful sin!
 O sir, that Christian men should come to that!"


THE ONE-LEGGED MAN

Propped on a stick he viewed the August weald;
 Squat orchard trees and oasts with painted cowls;
 A homely, tangled hedge, a corn-stooked field,
 With sound of barking dogs and farmyard fowls.

And he'd come home again to find it more
 Desirable than ever it was before.
 How right it seemed that he should reach the span
 Of comfortable years allowed to man!

Splendid to eat and sleep and choose a wife,
 Safe with his wound, a citizen of life.
 He hobbled blithely through the garden gate,
 And thought; "Thank God they had to amputate!"


RETURN OF THE HEROES

    A lady watches from the crowd,
     Enthusiastic, flushed, and proud.

"Oh! there's Sir Henry Dudster! Such a splendid leader!
 How pleased he looks! What rows of ribbons on his tunic!
 Such dignity…. Saluting…. (Wave your flag … now, Freda!)…
Yes, dear, I saw a Prussian General once,—at Munich.

"Here's the next carriage!… Jack was once in Leggit's Corps;
 That's him!… I think the stout one is Sir Godfrey Stoomer.
 They must feel sad to know they can't win any more
 Great victories!… Aren't they glorious men?… so full of humour!"


III

TWELVE MONTHS AFTER

Hullo! here's my platoon, the lot I had last year.
 "The War'll be over soon."
                            "What 'opes?"
                                          "No bloody fear!"
 Then, "Number Seven, 'shun! All present and correct."
 They're standing in the sun, impassive and erect.
 Young Gibson with his grin; and Morgan, tired and white;
 Jordan, who's out to win a D.C.M. some night:
 And Hughes that's keen on wiring; and Davies ('79),
 Who always must be firing at the Boche front line.


* * * * *

"Old soldiers never die; they simply fide a-why!"
 That's what they used to sing along the roads last spring;
 That's what they used to say before the push began;
 That's where they are to-day, knocked over to a man.


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 you in my brain,
   Though you've gone out patrolling in the dark.

You hated tours of trenches; you were proud
   Of nothing more than having good years to spend;
 Longed to get home and join the careless crowd
   Of chaps who work in peace with Time for friend.
 That's all washed out now. You're beyond the wire:
   No earthly chance can send you crawling back;
 You've finished with machine-gun fire—
  Knocked over in a hopeless dud-attack.

Somehow I always thought you'd get done in,
   Because you were so desperate keen to live:
 You were all out to try and save your skin,
   Well knowing how much the world had got to give.
 You joked at shells and talked the usual "shop,"
   Stuck to your dirty job and did it fine:
 With "Jesus Christ! when will it stop?
   Three years…. It's hell unless we break their line."

So when they told me you'd been left for dead
   I wouldn't believe them, feeling it must be true.
 Next week the bloody Roll of Honour said
   "Wounded and missing"—(That's the thing to do
 When lads are left in shell-holes dying slow,
   With nothing but blank sky and wounds that ache,
 Moaning for water till they know
   It's night, and then it's not worth while to wake!)


* * * * *

Good-bye, old lad! Remember me to God,
   And tell Him that our Politicians swear
 They won't give in till Prussian Rule's been trod
   Under the Heel of England…. Are you there?…

Yes … and the War won't end for at least two years;
 But we've got stacks of men … I'm blind with tears,
   Staring into the dark. Cheero!
 I wish they'd killed you in a decent show.


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 watches ended?
 From Ypres to Frise we sought you in the Line."
 In bitter safety I awake, unfriended;
 And while the dawn begins with slashing rain
 I think of the Battalion in the mud.
 "When are you going out to them again?
 Are they not still your brothers through our blood?"


BANISHMENT

I am banished from the patient men who fight.
 They smote my heart to pity, built my pride.
 Shoulder to aching shoulder, side by side,
 They trudged away from life's broad wealds of light.
 Their wrongs were mine; and ever in my sight
 They went arrayed in honour. But they died,—
Not one by one: and mutinous I cried
 To those who sent them out into the night.

The darkness tells how vainly I have striven
 To free them from the pit where they must dwell
 In outcast gloom convulsed and jagged and riven
 By grappling guns. Love drove me to rebel.
 Love drives me back to grope with them through hell;
 And in their tortured eyes I stand forgiven.


AUTUMN

October's bellowing anger breaks and cleaves
 The bronzed battalions of the stricken wood
 In whose lament I hear a voice that grieves
 For battle's fruitless harvest, and the feud
 Of outraged men. Their lives are like the leaves
 Scattered in flocks of ruin, tossed and blown
 Along the westering furnace flaring red.
 O martyred youth and manhood overthrown,
 The burden of your wrongs is on my head.


REPRESSION OF WAR EXPERIENCE

Now light the candles; one; two; there's a moth;
 What silly beggars they are to blunder in
 And scorch their wings with glory, liquid flame—
No, no, not that,—it's bad to think of war,
 When thoughts you've gagged all day come back to scare you;
 And it's been proved that soldiers don't go mad
 Unless they lose control of ugly thoughts
 That drive them out to jabber among the trees.

Now light your pipe; look, what a steady hand.
 Draw a deep breath; stop thinking; count fifteen,
 And you're as right as rain…. Why won't it rain?…
I wish there'd be a thunder-storm to-night,
 With bucketsful of water to sluice the dark,
 And make the roses hang their dripping heads.

Books; what a jolly company they are,
 Standing so quiet and patient on their shelves,
 Dressed in dim brown, and black, and white, and green
 And every kind of colour. Which will you read?
 Come on; O do read something; they're so wise.
 I tell you all the wisdom of the world
 Is waiting for you on those shelves; and yet
 You sit and gnaw your nails, and let your pipe out,
 And listen to the silence: on the ceiling
 There's one big, dizzy moth that bumps and flutters;
 And in the breathless air outside the house
 The garden waits for something that delays.
 There must be crowds of ghosts among the trees,—
Not people killed in battle,—they're in France,—
But horrible shapes in shrouds—old men who died
 Slow, natural deaths,—old men with ugly souls,
 Who wore their bodies out with nasty sins.


* * * * *

You're quiet and peaceful, summering safe at home;
 You'd never think there was a bloody war on!…
O yes, you would … why, you can hear the guns.
 Hark! Thud, thud, thud,—quite soft … they never cease—
Those whispering guns—O Christ, I want to go out
 And screech at them to stop—I'm going crazy;
 I'm going stark, staring mad because of the guns.


TOGETHER

Splashing along the boggy woods all day,
 And over brambled hedge and holding clay,
 I shall not think of him:
 But when the watery fields grow brown and dim,
 And hounds have lost their fox, and horses tire,
 I know that he'll be with me on my way
 Home through the darkness to the evening fire.

He's jumped each stile along the glistening lanes;
 His hand will be upon the mud-soaked reins;
 Hearing the saddle creak,
 He'll wonder if the frost will come next week.
 I shall forget him in the morning light;
 And while we gallop on he will not speak:
 But at the stable-door he'll say good-night.


THE HAWTHORN TREE

Not much to me is yonder lane
   Where I go every day;
 But when there's been a shower of rain
   And hedge-birds whistle gay,
 I know my lad that's out in France
   With fearsome things to see
 Would give his eyes for just one glance
   At our white hawthorn tree.


* * * * *

Not much to me is yonder lane
   Where he so longs to tread;
 But when there's been a shower of rain
 I think I'll never weep again
   Until I've heard he's dead.


CONCERT PARTY

(EGYPTIAN BASE CAMP)

They are gathering round …
Out of the twilight; over the grey-blue sand,
 Shoals of low-jargoning men drift inward to the sound,—
The jangle and throb of a piano … tum-ti-tum …
Drawn by a lamp, they come
 Out of the glimmering lines of their tents, over the shuffling sand.

O sing us the songs, the songs of our own land,
 You warbling ladies in white.
 Dimness conceals the hunger in our faces,
 This wall of faces risen out of the night,
 These eyes that keep their memories of the places
 So long beyond their sight.

Jaded and gay, the ladies sing; and the chap in brown
 Tilts his grey hat; jaunty and lean and pale,
 He rattles the keys … some actor-bloke from town …

"God send you home"; and then "A long, long trail"; "I hear you catting me"; and "Dixieland" … Sing slowly … now the chorus … one by one We hear them, drink them; till the concert's done. Silent, I watch the shadowy mass of soldiers stand. Silent, they drift away, over the glimmering sand.


KANTARA, April, 1918.

NIGHT ON THE CONVOY

(ALEXANDRIA-MARSEILLES)

Out in the blustering darkness, on the deck
 A gleam of stars looks down. Long blurs of black,
 The lean Destroyers, level with our track,
 Plunging and stealing, watch the perilous way
 Through backward racing seas and caverns of chill spray.


One sentry by the davits, in the gloom
 Stands mute; the boat heaves onward through the night.
 Shrouded is every chink of cabined light:
 And sluiced by floundering waves that hiss and boom
 And crash like guns, the troop-ship shudders … doom.

Now something at my feet stirs with a sigh;
 And slowly growing used to groping dark,
 I know that the hurricane-deck, down all its length,
 Is heaped and spread with lads in sprawling strength,—
Blanketed soldiers sleeping. In the stark
 Danger of life at war, they lie so still,
 All prostrate and defenceless, head by head …
And I remember Arras, and that hill
 Where dumb with pain I stumbled among the dead.

* * * * *
We are going home. The troop-ship, in a thrill
 Of fiery-chamber'd anguish, throbs and rolls.
 We are going home … victims … three thousand souls.


May, 1918.

A LETTER HOME

(To Robert Graves)

I

Here I'm sitting in the gloom
 Of my quiet attic room.
 France goes rolling all around,
 Fledged with forest May has crowned.
 And I puff my pipe, calm-hearted,
 Thinking how the fighting started,
 Wondering when we'll ever end it,
 Back to Hell with Kaiser send it,
 Gag the noise, pack up and go,
 Clockwork soldiers in a row.
 I've got better things to do
 Than to waste my time on you.

II

Robert, when I drowse to-night,
 Skirting lawns of sleep to chase
 Shifting dreams in mazy light,
 Somewhere then I'll see your face
 Turning back to bid me follow
 Where I wag my arms and hollo,
 Over hedges hasting after
 Crooked smile and baffling laughter,
 Running tireless, floating, leaping,
 Down your web-hung woods and valleys,
 Garden glooms and hornbeam alleys,
 Where the glowworm stars are peeping,
 Till I find you, quiet as stone
 On a hill-top all alone,
 Staring outward, gravely pondering
 Jumbled leagues of hillock-wandering.

III

You and I have walked together
 In the starving winter weather.
 We've been glad because we knew
 Time's too short and friends are few.
 We've been sad because we missed
 One whose yellow head was kissed
 By the gods, who thought about him
 Till they couldn't do without him.
 Now he's here again; I've seen
 Soldier David dressed in green,
 Standing in a wood that swings
 To the madrigal he sings.
 He's come back, all mirth and glory,
 Like the prince in a fairy story.
 Winter called him far away;
 Blossoms bring him home with May.

IV

Well, I know you'll swear it's true
 That you found him decked in blue
 Striding up through morning-land
 With a cloud on either hand.
 Out in Wales, you'll say, he marches
 Arm-in-arm with oaks and larches;
 Hides all night in hilly nooks,
 Laughs at dawn in tumbling brooks.
 Yet, it's certain, here he teaches
 Outpost-schemes to groups of beeches.
 And I'm sure, as here I stand,
 That he shines through every land,
 That he sings in every place
 Where we're thinking of his face.

V

Robert, there's a war in France;
 Everywhere men bang and blunder,
 Sweat and swear and worship Chance,
 Creep and blink through cannon thunder.
 Rifles crack and bullets flick,
 Sing and hum like hornet-swarms.
 Bones are smashed and buried quick.
 Yet, through stunning battle storms.
 All the while I watch the spark
 Lit to guide me; for I know
 Dreams will triumph, though the dark
 Scowls above me where I go.
You can hear me; you can mingle
 Radiant folly with my jingle,
 War's a joke for me and you
 While we know such dreams are true!


RECONCILIATION

When you are standing at your hero's grave,
 Or near some homeless village where he died,
 Remember, through your heart's rekindling pride,
 The German soldiers who were loyal and brave.

Men fought like brutes; and hideous things were done:
 And you have nourished hatred, harsh and blind.
 But in that Golgotha perhaps you'll find
 The mothers of the men who killed your son.


November, 1918.

MEMORIAL TABLET

(GREAT WAR)

Squire nagged and bullied till I went to fight
 (Under Lord Derby's scheme). I died in hell—
(They called it Passchendaele); my wound was slight,
 And I was hobbling back, and then a shell
 Burst slick upon the duck-boards; so I fell
 Into the bottomless mud, and lost the light.

In sermon-time, while Squire is in his pew,
 He gives my gilded name a thoughtful stare;
 For though low down upon the list, I'm there:
 "In proud and glorious memory"—that's my due.
 Two bleeding years I fought in France for Squire;
 I suffered anguish that he's never guessed;
 Once I came home on leave; and then went west.
 What greater glory could a man desire?


THE DEATH-BED

He drowsed and was aware of silence heaped
 Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls;
 Aqueous like floating rays of amber light,
 Soaring and quivering in the wings of sleep,—
Silence and safety; and his mortal shore
 Lipped by the inward, moonless waves of death.

Some one was holding water to his mouth.
 He swallowed, unresisting; moaned and dropped
 Through crimson gloom to darkness; and forgot
 The opiate throb and ache that was his wound.
 Water—calm, sliding green above the weir;
 Water—a sky-lit alley for his boat,
 Bird-voiced, and bordered with reflected flowers
 And shaken hues of summer: drifting down,
 He dipped contented oars, and sighed, and slept.

Night, with a gust of wind, was in the ward,
 Blowing the curtain to a glimmering curve.
 Night. He was blind; he could not see the stars
 Glinting among the wraiths of wandering cloud;
 Queer blots of colour, purple, scarlet, green,
 Flickered and faded in his drowning eyes.

Rain; he could hear it rustling through the dark;
 Fragrance and passionless music woven as one;
 Warm rain on drooping roses; pattering showers
 That soak the woods; not the harsh rain that sweeps
 Behind the thunder, but a trickling peace
 Gently and slowly washing life away.


* * * * *

He stirred, shifting his body; then the pain
 Leaped like a prowling beast, and gripped and tore
 His groping dreams with grinding claws and fangs.
 But some one was beside him; soon he lay
 Shuddering because that evil thing had passed.
 And Death, who'd stepped toward him, paused and stared.
Light many lamps and gather round his bed.
 Lend him your eyes, warm blood, and will to live.
 Speak to him; rouse him; you may save him yet.
 He's young; he hated war; how should he die
 When cruel old campaigners win safe through?
But Death replied: "I choose him." So he went,
 And there was silence in the summer night;
 Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep.
 Then, far away, the thudding of the guns.


AFTERMATH
Have you forgotten yet?…
For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days,
 Like traffic checked awhile at the crossing of city ways:
 And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow
 Like clouds in the lit heavens of life; and you're a man reprieved to go,
 Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare.
But the past is just the same,—and War's a bloody game,…
Have you forgotten yet?…
Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you'll never forget.
Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz,—
The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?
 Do you remember the rats; and the stench
 Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench,—
And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?
 Do you ever stop and ask, "Is it all going to happen again?"
Do you remember that hour of din before the attack,—
And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then
 As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?
 Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back
 With dying eyes and lolling heads,—those ashen-grey
 Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?
Have you forgotten yet?… Look up, and swear by the green of the Spring that you'll never forget.


SONG-BOOKS OF THE WAR

In fifty years, when peace outshines
 Remembrance of the battle lines,
 Adventurous lads will sigh and cast
 Proud looks upon the plundered past.
 On summer morn or winter's night,
 Their hearts will kindle for the fight,
 Reading a snatch of soldier-song,
 Savage and jaunty, fierce and strong;
 And through the angry marching rhymes
 Of blind regret and haggard mirth,
 They'll envy us the dazzling times
 When sacrifice absolved our earth.

Some ancient man with silver locks
 Will lift his weary face to say:
 "War was a fiend who stopped our clocks
 Although we met him grim and gay."
 And then he'll speak of Haig's last drive,
 Marvelling that any came alive
 Out of the shambles that men built
 And smashed, to cleanse the world of guilt.
 But the boys, with grin and sidelong glance,
 Will think, "Poor grandad's day is done."
 And dream of lads who fought in France
 And lived in time to share the fun.


EVERYONE SANG

Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
 And I was filled with such delight
 As prisoned birds must find in freedom
 Winging wildly across the white
 Orchards and dark green fields; on; on; and out of sight.

Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted,
 And beauty came like the setting sun.
 My heart was shaken with tears and horror
 Drifted away … O but every one
 Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.