Sorrow of War: Poems

Dead in Gallipoli

He died in Gallipoli. What English flower That we cherish shall grow of him? Never a flower Shall grow that we know of him! No white daisy-coverlet Shall grow from the ground of him; No English bird-loverlet Pipe love-songs around of him. Under the sycamore His grave not appears, Where the crocuses flicker more Than armies with spears. Under no tree at all England designed His body may be at all Gently consigned.

He died in Gallipoli The death on a stake. Gallipoli poison Is now the great part of him. A flower like a snake Shall writhe from the heart of him. The desolate surf Below him is muttering. Over his turf A bird like a devil Is flapping and fluttering. The poisonous bird Whose scarlet eye glowers, The poisonous flowers With petals unclean Are the only things heard And the only things seen.

Is that the whole of you, White lad from England, Is that the soul of you, Dead in Gallipoli? You are dead to me, dead to me, Barren and far, But a Thing that was said to me, By a bird, by a star, --An old thing of solace, O stupid it seemed; And I now cannot tell at all If the whisper that fell at all I heard or I dreamed. It seemed that I caught a Faint whisper or sign, Being drunken with water, Or hallowed with wine.

Ah, would that I knew What the Word was that came, What the Thing was that gleamed With a wind and a flame; Ah, would that I knew, Even as you, O white lad from England, White lad from England, Dead in Gallipoli, Would that I knew If I heard or I dreamed!

A Journey South

To the South lands, the green lands, from the North, the harsh Rocks, where the eagles whose granite bills Screech from the scars of toppling hills. To the South lands, the green lands, from the North, the marsh Hollows which black waste water fills, --The South green lands!

To the South lands, the green lands, where the flowers of fruit Are moons entangled in cosmic trees, Where birds are rocks in the foam of seas, The wind's a player, the grass a lute Whose wires are swept by the wings of bees, --The South green lands!

To the South lands, the green lands--but halt, O hark! A sob of birds in a poisoned wood! The fume of poppies crushed foul in mud! The whine of the wings of Death through the dark! A sunset of flame, a moon of blood! --The South red lands!

The New Trade

In the market-places they have made A dolorous new trade. Now you will see in the fierce naphtha-light, Piled hideously to sight, Dead limbs of men bronzed in the over-seas, Bomb-wrenched from elbows and knees; Torn feet, that would, unwearied by harsh loads, Have tramped steep moorland roads; Torn hands that would have moulded exquisitely Rare things for God to see. And there are eyes there--blue like blue doves' wings, Black like the Libyan kings, Grey as before-dawn rivers, willow-stirred, Brown as a singing-bird; But all stare from the dark into the dark, Reproachful, tense, and stark. Eyes heaped on trays and in broad baskets there, Feet, hands, and ropes of hair. In the market-places ... and women buy ... ... Naphtha glares ... hawkers cry ... Fat men rub hands.... O God, O just God, send Plague, lightnings ... Make an end!

The Woman Who Shrieked Against Peace

Abundant woman panting there, Whose breast is flecked with spots of grease That splutter from your laboured hair, O dew-lapped woman, you who reek Of stout and steak and fish and chips, Why does the short indignant shriek Come toppling from your fleshy lips; Because, poor smitten fool, I dare To breathe the outcast name of Peace?

And shall your flesh grow less to view, And shall your chubby arms grow thin, And shall you miss your stout and stew, The bracelets which you wear so well, If blinded boys no more shall creep Along the scorching roads to Hell, If thick red blood no more shall steep Green fields in France, nor corpses smell; If Peace send down her blasting blight, O shall it spoil your sleep at night, And shall you lose your treble chin?

The Women at the Corners Stand

The women at the corners stand. They say, "Where are the men you stole from us away? Where are they now, the laughing lovers whom You heaped in sombre ranks against the gloom?" They murmur ceaselessly and without haste, "Our arms are empty and our wombs are waste." "Where are the men that marched into the dusk?" They say with voices withered like a husk. "Night is like cinders: day is lean and stern. Our hearts are parched with thirsting; yea, we burn. Where are the men you took? Bid them return."

The women at the corners stand. But no Reply is heard. They wait till night. They go Back to their homes. Once more they come next day, "Where are the men you stole from us away?" They draw their shawls around their heads. They wait. They say, "But we are weary. It is late." They murmur ceaselessly and without haste, "Our arms are empty and our wombs are waste." No word is said to them. But only they, The women at the corners, stand. They say, "Send back our lovers whom you stole away."

You will not change, with a swift catch of pride, In the cold hut among the leers and oaths, Out of your suit of frayed civilian clothes, Into the blaze of khaki they provide.

Like a trapped animal you crouch and choke In the packed carriage where the veterans smoke And tell such pitiless tales of Over There, They stop your heart dead short and freeze your hair.

Your body's like a flower on a snapt stalk, Your head hangs from your neck as blank as chalk.

What horrors haunt you, head upon your breast! ... O but you'll die as bravely as the rest!

During the Battle

O the terror of the Battle at this ending of the days! O the thunder of the wings through the gloom! O the thousand thousand companies that strew the sombre ways To achieve this final doom!

Where the flames disrupt the night and the hell-fumes flee, 'Mid the darkness and the splitting of the skies, Only your young white wistful face I see, My brother, only your eyes!

Jack

The heavy smells of Spring Are flooding through my skin. My body drinks them in. Like rich red veils they cling About my prostrate head. I swoon into a bed, The heavy smells of Spring.

I now almost forget The pain, the pain, the pain; Now being lulled by rain, And smells and warm wings wet. I swoon into a bed, Almost forget you're dead, Almost, almost forget.

Now, now my memories drowse Amid the whine of bells, The fumes of rich red smells, The stupor round my brows. My nerves and veins are lead. I swoon into a bed, Where all my sorrows drowse.

Then suddenly you return, O marrow of my bone, Blood flowing through my own! My pulses yearn and burn. I battle round my head, Cry strickenly from my bed. Suddenly you return!

O God of War and Dearth, O shattering Blast that blew, Blood-eyed, blood-fingered, you Damned God of War and Dearth! He whom you wrenched from me To monstrous things and vain, Burned, broken, buried, he, He is this smell of earth, This dead moist smell of rain!

German Boy

German boy with cold blue eyes, In the cold and blue moonrise, I who live and still shall know Flowers that smell and winds that blow, I who live to walk again, Fired the shot that broke your brain.

By your hair all stiff with blood, By your lips befouled with mud, By your dreams that shall no more Leave the nest and sing and soar, By the children never born From your body smashed and torn, --When I too shall stand at last In the deadland vast, Shall you heap upon my soul Agonies of coal? Shall you bind my throat with cords, Stab me through with swords? Or shall you be gentler far Than a bird or than a star? Shall you know that I was bound In the noose that choked you round? Shall you say, "The way was hid. Lord, he knew not what he did"? Shall your eyes that day be mild, Like the Sacrifice, the Child? ... German boy with cold blue eyes, In the cold and blue moonrise.

Stretched and silent they lie to the furious gold of the dawn, And the earth like a leper's face is pitted and scarred. Firm in the grip of the wire relentless and hard, They lie with their dead young faces pallid and drawn.

Somewhere stupidly, thickly, a big gun booms! A rifle cracks like the spit of a snake in the trees! And ever the great sun rises, rolling the glooms Of the sulphurous night to the fields and the cliffs and the seas.

The groan of a dying man crawls out from his teeth! He groans no more: his lips become leaden and cold! And ever the sun flashes forth like a sword from its sheath, And dazzles the dawn with terrors of scarlet and gold.

The guns snarl out like a dog reluctant and grim. The triggers of rifles loosen in blue numb hands. Faintly the wings of a silence frightened and dim Hover down closer over the blasted lands.

Gods of the great wars, Gods that stand Somewhere afar off, Cruel and grand, Silence, Silence, In No Man's Land!