HKB
home, whispering of fields unsown. Always it woke him, even in France, Until this morning and this snow. If anything might rouse him now The kind old sun will know.
Think how it wakes the seeds-- Woke, once, the clays of a cold star. Are limbs so dear-achieved, are sides Full-nerved,--still warm,--too hard to stir? Was it for this the clay grew tall? --O what made fatuous sunbeams toil To break earth's sleep at all?
Smile, Smile, Smile
Head to limp head, the sunk-eyed wounded scanned Yesterday's Mail; the casualties (typed small) And (large) Vast Booty from our Latest Haul. Also, they read of Cheap Homes, not yet planned; For, said the paper, "When this war is done The men's first instinct will be making homes. Meanwhile their foremost need is aerodromes, It being certain war has just begun. Peace would do wrong to our undying dead,-- The sons we offered might regret they died If we got nothing lasting in their stead. We must be solidly indemnified. Though all be worthy Victory which all bought, We rulers sitting in this ancient spot Would wrong our very selves if we forgot The greatest glory will be theirs who fought, Who kept this nation in integrity." Nation?--The half-limbed readers did not chafe But smiled at one another curiously Like secret men who know their secret safe. This is the thing they know and never speak, That England one by one had fled to France (Not many elsewhere now save under France). Pictures of these broad smiles appear each week, And people in whose voice real feeling rings Say: How they smile! They're happy now, poor things.
23rd September 1918.
Conscious
His fingers wake, and flutter up the bed. His eyes come open with a pull of will, Helped by the yellow may-flowers by his head. A blind-cord drawls across the window-sill . . . How smooth the floor of the ward is! what a rug! And who's that talking, somewhere out of sight? Why are they laughing? What's inside that jug? "Nurse! Doctor!" "Yes; all right, all right."
But sudden dusk bewilders all the air-- There seems no time to want a drink of water. Nurse looks so far away. And everywhere Music and roses burnt through crimson slaughter. Cold; cold; he's cold; and yet so hot: And there's no light to see the voices by-- No time to dream, and ask--he knows not what.
A Terre
(Being the philosophy of many Soldiers.)
Sit on the bed; I'm blind, and three parts shell, Be careful; can't shake hands now; never shall. Both arms have mutinied against me--brutes. My fingers fidget like ten idle brats.
I tried to peg out soldierly--no use! One dies of war like any old disease. This bandage feels like pennies on my eyes. I have my medals?--Discs to make eyes close. My glorious ribbons?--Ripped from my own back In scarlet shreds. (That's for your poetry book.)