Poems Read online

Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal.

  Only a solemn man who brought him fruits,

  Thanked him; and then enquired about his soul.

  * * *

  Now, he will spend a few sick years in Institutes,

  And do what things the rules consider wise,

  And take whatever pity they may dole.

  Tonight he noticed how the women’s eyes

  Passed from him to the strong men that were whole.

  How cold and late it is! Why don’t they come

  And put him into bed? Why don’t they come?

  Sonnet

  (On Seeing a Piece of Our Artillery Brought into Action)

  Be slowly lifted up, thou long black arm,

  Great gun towering toward Heaven, about to curse;

  Sway steep against them, and for years rehearse

  Huge imprecations like a blasting charm!

  Reach at that arrogance which needs thy harm,

  And beat it down before its sins grow worse;

  Spend our resentment, cannon, yea, disburse

  Our gold in shapes of flame, our breaths in storm.

  Yet, for men’s sakes whom thy vast malison

  Must wither innocent of enmity,

  Be not withdrawn, dark arm, thy spoilure done,

  Safe to the bosom of our prosperity.

  But when thy spell be cast complete and whole,

  May God curse thee, and cut thee from our soul!

  Sonnet

  (To a Child)

  Sweet is your antique body, not yet young;

  Beauty withheld from youth that looks for youth;

  Fair only for your father. Dear among

  Masters in art. To all men else uncouth;

  Save me, who know your smile comes very old,

  Learnt of the happy dead that laughed with gods;

  For earlier suns than ours have lent you gold,

  Sly fauns and trees have given you jigs and nods.

  But soon your heart, hot-beating like a bird’s,

  Shall slow down. Youth shall lop your hair;

  And you must learn wry meanings in our words.

  Your smile shall dull, because too keen aware;

  And when for hopes your hand shall be uncurled,

  Your eyes shall close, being opened to the world.

  The Fates

  They watch me, those informers to the Fates,

  Called Fortune, Chance, Necessity, and Death;

  Time, in disguise as one who serves and waits,

  Eternity as girls of fragrant breath.

  I know them. Men and Boys are in their pay,

  And those I hold my trustiest friends may prove

  Agents of Theirs to take me if I stray

  From fatal ordinance. If I move, they move –

  Escape? There is one unwatched way; your eyes,

  O Beauty! Keep me good that secret gate.

  And when the cordon tightens of the spies

  Let the close iris of your eyes grow great.

  So I’ll evade the vice and rack of age

  And miss the march of lifetime, stage by stage.

  Anthem for Doomed Youth

  What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

  Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

  Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle

  Can patter out their hasty orisons.

  No mockeries for them from prayers or bells,

  Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –

  The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

  And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

  What candles may be held to speed them all?

  Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

  Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.

  The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;

  Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

  And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

  The Next War

  War’s a joke for me and you,

  While we know such dreams are true.

  SIEGFRIED SASSOON

  Out there, we’ve walked quite friendly up to Death;

  Sat down and eaten beside him, cool and bland, –

  Pardoned his spilling mess-tins in our hand.

  We’ve sniffed the green thick odour of his breath, –

  Our eyes wept, but our courage didn’t writhe.

  He’s spat at us with bullets and he’s coughed

  Shrapnel. We chorused when he sang aloft;

  We whistled while he shaved us with his scythe.

  Oh, Death was never enemy of ours!

  We laughed at him, we leagued with him, old chum.

  No soldier’s paid to kick against his powers.

  We laughed, knowing that better men would come,

  And greater wars; when every fighter brags

  He wars on Death – for Life; not men – for flags.

  Song of Songs

  Sing me at morn but only with your laugh;

  Even as Spring that laugheth into leaf;

  Even as Love that laugheth after Life.

  Sing me but only with your speech all day,

  As voluble leaflets do; let viols die;

  The least word of your lips is melody!

  Sing me at eve but only with your sigh!

  Like lifting seas it solaceth; breathe so,

  Slowly and low, the sense that no songs say.

  Sing me at midnight with your murmurous heart!

  Let youth’s immortal-moaning chords be heard

  Throbbing through you, and sobbing, unsubdued.

  All Sounds Have Been as Music

  All sounds have been as music to my listening:

  Pacific lamentations of slow bells,

  The crunch of boots on blue snow rosy-glistening,

  Shuffle of autumn leaves; and all farewells:

  Bugles that sadden all the evening air,

  And country bells clamouring their last appeals

  Before [the] music of the evening prayer;

  Bridges, sonorous under carriage wheels.

  Gurgle of sluicing surge through hollow rocks,

  The gluttonous lapping of the waves on weeds,

  Whisper of grass; the myriad-tinkling flocks,

  The warbling drawl of flutes and shepherds’ reeds.

  The orchestral noises of October nights

  Blowing [     ] symphonetic storms

  Of startled clarions [    ]

  Drums, rumbling and rolling thunderous and [   ].

  Thrilling of throstles in the keen blue dawn,

  Bees fumbling and fuming over sainfoin-fields.

  * * *

  Voices

  Bugles sang, saddening the evening air,

  And bugles answered, sorrowful to hear.

  Voices of boys were by the river-side.

  Sleep mothered them; and left the twilight sad.

  The shadow of the morrow weighed on men.

  Voices of old despondency resigned,

  Bowed by the shadow of the morrow, slept.

  [        ] dying tone

  Of receding voices that will not return.

  The wailing of the high far-travelling shells

  And the deep cursing of the provoking [    ].

  The monstrous anger of our taciturn guns.

  The majesty of the insults of their mouths.

  Apologia pro Poemate meo

  I, too, saw God through mud, –

  The mud that cracked on cheeks when wretches smiled.

  War brought more glory to their eyes than blood,

  And gave their laughs more glee than shakes a child.

  Merry it was to laugh there –

  Where death becomes absurd and life absurder.

  For power was on us as we slashed bones bare

  Not to feel sickness or remorse of murder.

  I, too, have dropped off fear – br />
  Behind the barrage, dead as my platoon,

  And sailed my spirit surging, light and clear

  Past the entanglement where hopes lay strewn;

  And witnessed exultation –

  Faces that used to curse me, scowl for scowl,

  Shine and lift up with passion of oblation,

  Seraphic for an hour; though they were foul.

  I have made fellowships –

  Untold of happy lovers in old song.

  For love is not the binding of fair lips

  With the soft silk of eyes that look and long,

  By Joy, whose ribbon slips, –

  But wound with war’s hard wire whose stakes are strong;

  Bound with the bandage of the arm that drips;

  Knit in the webbing of the rifle-thong.

  I have perceived much beauty

  In the hoarse oaths that kept our courage straight;

  Heard music in the silentness of duty;

  Found peace where shell-storms spouted reddest spate.

  Nevertheless, except you share

  With them in hell the sorrowful dark of hell,

  Whose world is but the trembling of a flare

  And heaven but as the highway for a shell,

  You shall not hear their mirth:

  You shall not come to think them well content

  By any jest of mine. These men are worth

  Your tears. You are not worth their merriment.

  November 1917

  À 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.)

  A short life and a merry one, my buck!

  We used to say we’d hate to live dead-old, –

  Yet now … I’d willingly be puffy, bald,

  And patriotic. Buffers catch from boys

  At least the jokes hurled at them. I suppose

  Little I’d ever teach a son, but hitting,

  Shooting, war, hunting, all the arts of hurting.

  Well, that’s what I learnt, – that, and making money.

  Your fifty years ahead seem none too many?

  Tell me how long I’ve got? God! For one year

  To help myself to nothing more than air!

  One Spring! Is one too good to spare, too long?

  Spring wind would work its own way to my lung,

  And grow me legs as quick as lilac-shoots.

  My servant’s lamed, but listen how he shouts!

  When I’m lugged out, he’ll still be good for that.

  Here in this mummy-case, you know, I’ve thought

  How well I might have swept his floors for ever.

  I’d ask no nights off when the bustle’s over,

  Enjoying so the dirt. Who’s prejudiced

  Against a grimed hand when his own’s quite dust,

  Less live than specks that in the sun-shafts turn,

  Less warm than dust that mixes with arms’ tan?

  I’d love to be a sweep, now, black as Town,

  Yes, or a muckman. Must I be his load?

  O Life, Life, let me breathe, – a dug-out rat!

  Not worse than ours the lives rats lead –

  Nosing along at night down some safe rut,

  They find a shell-proof home before they rot.

  Dead men may envy living mites in cheese,

  Or good germs even. Microbes have their joys,

  And subdivide, and never come to death.

  Certainly flowers have the easiest time on earth.

  ‘I shall be one with nature, herb, and stone,’

  Shelley would tell me. Shelley would be stunned:

  The dullest Tommy hugs that fancy now.

  ‘Pushing up daisies’ is their creed, you know.

  To grain, then, go my fat, to buds my sap,

  For all the usefulness there is in soap.

  D’you think the Boche will ever stew man-soup?

  Some day, no doubt, if …

  Friend, be very sure

  I shall be better off with plants that share

  More peaceably the meadow and the shower.

  Soft rains will touch me, – as they could touch once,

  And nothing but the sun shall make me ware.

  Your guns may crash around me. I’ll not hear;

  Or, if I wince, I shall not know I wince.

  Don’t take my soul’s poor comfort for your jest.

  Soldiers may grow a soul when turned to fronds,

  But here the thing’s best left at home with friends.

  My soul’s a little grief, grappling your chest,

  To climb your throat on sobs; easily chased

  On other sighs and wiped by fresher winds.

  Carry my crying spirit till it’s weaned

  To do without what blood remained these wounds.

  Wild with All Regrets

  (Another Version of ‘À Terre’)

  To Siegfried Sassoon

  My arms have mutinied against me, – brutes!

  My fingers fidget like ten idle brats,

  My back’s been stiff for hours, damned hours.

  Death never gives his squad a Stand-at-ease.

  I can’t read. There: it’s no use. Take your book.

  A short life and a merry one, my buck!

  We said we’d hate to grow dead-old. But now,

  Not to live old seems awful: not to renew

  My boyhood with my boys, and teach ’em hitting,

  Shooting and hunting, – and all the arts of hurting!

  – Well, that’s what I learnt. That, and making money.

  Your fifty years in store seem none too many,

  But I’ve five minutes. God! For just two years

  To help myself to this good air of yours!

  One Spring! Is one too hard to spare? Too long?

  Spring air would find its own way to my lung,

  And grow me legs as quick as lilac-shoots.

  * * *

  Yes, there’s the orderly. He’ll change the sheets

  When I’m lugged out. Oh, couldn’t I do that?

  Here in this coffin of a bed, I’ve thought

  I’d like to kneel and sweep his floors for ever, –

  And ask no nights off when the bustle’s over,

  For I’d enjoy the dirt. Who’s prejudiced

  Against a grimed hand when his own’s quite dust, –

  Less live than specks that in the sun-shafts turn?

  Dear dust – in rooms, on roads, on faces’ tan!

  I’d love to be a sweep’s boy, black as Town;

  Yes, or a muck-man. Must I be his load?

  A flea would do. If one chap wasn’t bloody,

  Or went stone-cold, I’d find another body.

  * * *

  Which I shan’t manage now. Unless it’s yours.

  I shall stay in you, friend, for some few hours.

  You’ll feel my heavy spirit chill your chest,

  And climb your throat on sobs, until it’s chased

  On sighs, and wiped from off your lips by wind.

  I think on your rich breathing, brother, I’ll be weaned

  To do without what blood remained me from my wound.

  December 5, 1917

  Winter Song

  The browns, the olives, and the yellows died,

  And were swept up to heaven; where they glowed

  Each dawn and set of sun till Christmastide,

  And when the
land lay pale for them, pale-snowed,

  Fell back, and down the snow-drifts flamed and flowed.

  From off your face, into the winds of winter,

  The sun-brown and the summer-gold are blowing;

  But they shall gleam again with spiritual glinter,

  When paler beauty on your brows falls snowing,

  And through those snows my looks shall be soft-going.

  October 18, 1917

  Hospital Barge at Cérisy

  Budging the sluggard ripples of the Somme,

  A barge round old Cérisy slowly slewed.

  Softly her engines down the current screwed

  And chuckled softly with contented hum,

  Till fairy tinklings struck their croonings dumb,

  The waters rumpling at the stern subdued.

  The lock-gate took her bulging amplitude.

  Gently into the gurgling lock she swum.

  One, reading by that sunset raised his eyes

  To watch her lessening westward quietly;

  Till, as she neared the bend, her funnel screamed.

  And that long lamentation made him wise

  How unto Avalon in agony

  Kings passed in the dark barge which Merlin dreamed.

  December 8, 1917

  Six O’Clock in Princes Street

  In twos and threes, they have not far to roam,

  Crowds that thread eastward, gay of eyes;

  Those seek no further than their quiet home,

  Wives, walking westward, slow and wise.

  Neither should I go fooling over clouds,

  Following gleams unsafe, untrue,

  And tiring after beauty through star-crowds,

  Dared I go side by side with you;

  Or be you on the gutter where you stand,