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,...
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 hi...
Does it matter
-losing your legs
For people will always be kind,
And you need not show that you
Voices moving about in the quiet house: Thud of feet and a muffled shutting of doors: Everyone yawning
Only the clocks are alert
Out in the night there’s autumn-smelling gloom Crowded with whispering trees; across the parkA hollow cry of...
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 disgraceI s...
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 f...
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
Four days the earth was rent and
By bursting steel,
The houses fell about us;
Three nights we dared not sleep,
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
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 our dear old Tanks
’ I’d like to see a Tank come down the stalls,
Lu...
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 p...
Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
Winging wildly across the