Selected Poetry

Sir Henry Newbolt, Vitai Lampada, "They Pass On The Torch of Life," (1892).

There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night --

Ten to make and the match to win --
A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
An hour to play and the last man in.
And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat,
Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,
But his Captain's hand on his shoulder smote --
'Play up! play up! and play the game!'

The sand of the desert is sodden red, --

Red with the wreck of a square that broke; --
The Gatling's jammed and the Colonel dead,
And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.
The river of death has brimmed his banks,
And England's far, and Honour a name,
But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks:
'Play up! play up! and play the game!'

This is the word that year by year,

While in her place the School is set,
Every one of her sons must hear,
And none that hears it dare forget.
This they all with a joyful mind
Bear through life like a torch in flame,
And falling fling to the host behind --
'Play up! play up! and play the game!'
Robert Graves, “The Dead Fox Hunter” (1915)

We found the little captain at the head;

His men lay well aligned.
We touched his hand---stone cold---and he was dead,
And they, all dead behind,
Had never reached their goal, but they died well;
They charged in line, and in the same line fell.

The well-known rosy colours of his face

Were almost lost in grey.
We saw that, dying and in hopeless case,
For others' sake that day
He'd smothered all rebellious groans: in death
His fingers were tight clenched between his teeth.

For those who live uprightly and die true

Heaven has no bars or locks,
And serves all taste...or what's for him to do
Up there, but hunt the fox?
Angelic choirs? No, Justice must provide
For one who rode straight and in hunting died.

So if Heaven had no Hunt before he came,

Why, it must find one now:
If any shirk and doubt they know the game,
There's one to teach them how:
And the whole host of Seraphim complete
Must jog in scarlet to his opening Meet.
E.A. Mackintosh, “In Memoriam”

So you were David's father, O God! I heard them call

And he was your only son, To me for help and pity
And the new-cut peats are rotting That could not help at all.
And the work is left undone,
Because of an old man weeping, Oh never will I forget you,
Just an old man in pain, My men that trusted me,
For David, his son David, More my sons than your fathers’,
That will not come again. For they could only see
The little helpless babies
Oh, the letters he wrote you, And the young men in their pride.
And I can see them still, They could not see you dying,
Not a word of the fighting, And hold you while you died.
But just the sheep on the hill
And how you should get the crops in Happy and young and gallant,
Ere the year get stormier, They saw their first-born go,
And the Bosches have got his body, But not the strong limbs broken
And I was his officer. And the beautiful men brought low,
The piteous writhing bodies,
You were only David's father, They screamed “Don’t leave me, sir”,
But I had fifty sons For they were only your fathers
When we went up in the evening But I was your officer.
Under the arch of the guns,
And we came back at twilight -
Siegfried Sassoon, “The Hero,” (1917)

‘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 quivered 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.
Robert Service “A Boche”

We brought him in from between the lines: we'd better have let him lie;
For what's the use of risking one's skin for a tyke that's going to die?
What's the use of tearing him loose under a gruelling fire,
When he's shot in the head, and worse than dead, and all messed up on the wire?
However, I say, we brought him in. Diable! The mud was bad;
The trench was crooked and greasy and high, and oh, what a time we had!
And often we slipped, and often we tripped, but never he made a moan;
And how we were wet with blood and with sweat! but we carried him in like our own.

Now there he lies in the dug-out dim, awaiting the ambulance,

And the doctor shrugs his shoulders at him, and remarks, "He hasn't a chance."
And we squat and smoke at our game of bridge on the glistening, straw-packed floor,
And above our oaths we can hear his breath deep-drawn in a kind of snore.
For the dressing station is long and low, and the candles gutter dim,
And the mean light falls on the cold clay walls and our faces bristly and grim;
And we flap our cards on the lousy straw, and we laugh and jibe as we play,
And you'd never know that the cursed foe was less than a mile away.
As we con our cards in the rancid gloom, oppressed by that snoring breath,
You'd never dream that our broad roof-beam was swept by the broom of death.

Heigh-ho! My turn for the dummy hand; I rise and I stretch a bit;
The fetid air is making me yawn, and my cigarette's unlit,
So I go to the nearest candle flame, and the man we brought is there,
And his face is white in the shabby light, and I stand at his feet and stare.
Stand for a while, and quietly stare: for strange though it seems to be,
The dying Boche on the stretcher there has a queer resemblance to me.

It gives one a kind of a turn, you know, to come on a thing like that.
It's just as if I were lying there, with a turban of blood for a hat,
Lying there in a coat grey-green instead of a coat grey-blue,
With one of my eyes all shot away, and my brain half tumbling through;
Lying there with a chest that heaves like a bellows up and down,
And a cheek as white as snow on a grave, and lips that are coffee brown.

And confound him, too! He wears, like me, on his finger a wedding ring,
And around his neck, as around my own, by a greasy bit of string,
A locket hangs with a woman's face, and I turn it about to see:
Just as I thought . . . on the other side the faces of children three;
Clustered together cherub-like, three little laughing girls,
With the usual tiny rosebud mouths and the usual silken curls.
"Zut!" I say. "He has beaten me; for me, I have only two,"
And I push the locket beneath his shirt, feeling a little blue.

Oh, it isn't cheerful to see a man, the marvellous work of God,

Crushed in the mutilation mill, crushed to a smeary clod;
Oh, it isn't cheerful to hear him moan; but it isn't that I mind,
It isn't the anguish that goes with him, it's the anguish he leaves behind.
For his going opens a tragic door that gives on a world of pain,
And the death he dies, those who live and love, will die again and again.

So here I am at my cards once more, but it's kind of spoiling my play,

Thinking of those three brats of his so many a mile away.
War is war, and he's only a Boche, and we all of us take our chance;
But all the same I'll be mighty glad when I'm hearing the ambulance.
One foe the less, but all the same I'm heartily glad I'm not
The man who gave him his broken head, the sniper who fired the shot.

No trumps you make it, I think you said? You'll pardon me if I err;
For a moment I thought of other things . . .Mon Dieu! Quelle vache de gueerre.
Frederic Manning, “The Face”

Out of the smoke of men's wrath,

The red mist of anger,
Suddenly,
As a wraith of sleep,
A boy's face, white and tense,
Convulsed with terror and hate,
The lips trembling. . . .
Then a red smear, falling. . . .
I thrust aside the cloud, as it were tangible,
Blinded with a mist of blood.
The face cometh again
As a wraith of sleep:
A boy's face, delicate and blond,
The very mask of God,
Broken.
Wilhelm Klemm, “At the Front”

The countryside is desolate.

The fields look tear-stained.
A grey cart is going along an evil road.
The roof has slipped off a house.
Dead horses lie rotting in pools.

The brown lines back there are trenches.

On the horizon a farm is taking its time to burn.
Shells explode, echo away—pop, pop pauuu.
Cavalrymen disappear slowly in a bare copse.

Clouds of shrapnel burst open and fade away.

A defile takes us in. Infantrymen are halted there, wet and muddy.
Death is as much a matter of indifference as the rain which is coming on.
Who cares about yesterday, today, or tomorrow?

And the barbed wire runs across the whole of Europe.

The forts sleep gently.
Villages and towns stink out of their terrible ruins.
Like broken dolls the dead lie between the lines.
John Hunter Wickersham, “Raindrops on your old tin hat”

The mist hangs low and quiet on a ragged line of hills,

There's a whispering of wind across the flat,
You'd be feeling kind of lonesome if it wasn't for one thing--
The patter of the raindrops on your old tin hat.

An' you just can't help a-figuring--sitting there alone--

About this war and hero stuff and that,
And you wonder if they haven't sort of got things twisted up,
While the rain keeps up its patter on your old tin hat.

When you step off with the outfit to do your little bit,
You're simply doing what you're s'posed to do--
And you don't take time to figure what you gain or what you lose,
It's the spirit of the game that brings you through.

But back at home she's waiting, writing cheerful little notes,

And every night she offers up a prayer
And just keeps on a-hoping that her soldier boy is safe--
The mother of the boy who's over there.

And, fellows, she's the hero of this great big ugly war,
And her prayer is on that wind across the flat,
And don't you reckon maybe it's her tears, and not the rain,
That's keeping up the patter on your old tin hat?
Joseph Lee, “The Bullet”

Every bullet has its billet;

Many bullets more than one:
God! Perhaps I killed a mother
When I killed a mother's son.

Joseph Lee, “Casualty List”

Maidens and matrons; mothers o’sons,

How many have fallen a prey to the guns?

Wilfred Owen, “Dulce et Decorum Est”

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen, “The Last Laugh”

‘O Jesus Christ! I’m hit,’ he said; and died.

Whether he vainly cursed or prayed indeed,
The Bullets chirped—In vain, vain, vain!
Machine-guns chuckled—Tut-tut! Tut-tut!
And the Big Gun guffawed.
Another sighed,—‘O Mother,—mother,—Dad!’
Then smiled at nothing, childlike, being dead.
And the lofty Shrapnel-cloud
Leisurely gestured,—Fool!
And the splinters spat, and tittered.
‘My Love!’ one moaned. Love-languid seemed his mood,
Till slowly lowered, his whole face kissed the mud.
And the Bayonets’ long teeth grinned;
Rabbles of Shells hooted and groaned;
And the Gas hissed.
Charles Sorley, “When you see Millions of the Mouthless Dead,” (Oct. 1915)

When you see millions of the mouthless dead

Across your dreams in pale battalions go,
Say not soft things as other men have said,
That you'll remember. For you need not so.
Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know
It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?
Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.
Say only this, "They are dead." Then add thereto,
“Yet many a better one has died before.”
Then, scanning all the o'ercrowded mass, should you
Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,
It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.
Great death has made all his for evermore.

Mary E. Fullerton, “War Time”

Young John, the postman, day by day,

In sunshine or in rain,
Comes down our road with words of doom
In envelopes of pain.

What cares he as he swings along

At his mechanic part,
How many times his hand lets fall
The knocker on a heart?

He whistles merry scraps of song,

What'er his bag contain—
Of words of death, of words of doom
In envelopes of pain
Rose Macaulay, “Spreading Manure”

There are fifty steaming heaps in the One Tree field,

Lying in five rows of ten,
They must all be spread out ere the earth will yield
As it should (and it won’t, even then).

Drive the great fork in, fling it out wide;

Jerk it with a shoulder throw.
The stuff must lie even, two feet on each side,
Not in patches, but level -- so.

When the heap is thrown you must go all round

And flatten it out with the spade,
It must lie quite close and trim till the ground
Is like bread spread with marmalade.

The north-east wind stabs and cuts our breath;

The soaked clay numbs our feet.
We are palsied, like people gripped by death,
In the beating of the frozen sleet.

I think no soldier is so cold as we,

Sitting in the Flanders mud.
I wish I was out there, for it might be
A shell would burst to heat my blood.

I wish I was out there, for I should creep

In my dug-out, and hide my head,
I should feel no cold when they laid me deep
To sleep in a six-foot bed.

I wish I was out there, and off the open land:

A deep trench I could just endure.
But things being other, I needs must stand
Frozen, and spread wet manure.
Alice Dunbar-Nelson, “I Sit and Sew”

I sit and sew – a useless task it seems,

My hands grown tired, my head weighed down with dreams –
The panoply of war, the martial tread of men,
Grim-faced, stern-eyed, gazing beyond the ken
Of lesser souls, whose eyes have not seen Death,
Nor learned to hold their lives but as a breath –
But – I must sit and sew.

I sit and sew – my heart aches with desire –

That pageant terrible, that fiercely pouring fire
On wasted fields, and writhing grotesque things
Once men. My soul in pity flings
Appealing cries, yearning only to go
There in that holocaust of hell, those fields of woe –
But – I must sit and sew.

The little useless seam, the idle patch;

Why dream I here beneath my homely thatch,
When there they lie in sodden mud and rain,
Pitifully calling me, the quick ones and the slain?
You need me, Christ! It is no roseate dream
That beckons me—this pretty futile seam,
It stifles me—God, must I sit and sew?

Charles Péguy, “Eve,” (1913)

(abridged, the full poem has 26 stanzas)

Blessed are those who died for carnal earth

Provided it was in a just war.
Blessed are those who did for a piece of ground.
Blessed are those who died a solemn death.
Blessed are those who died in great battles.
Lying on the ground with their face to God.
Blessed are those who died on the high ground
Among all the trappings of a state funeral.

Blessed are those who died, for they have returned

Into primeval clay and primeval earth.
Blessed are those who died in a just war.
Blessed is the wheat that is ripe and the wheat that is gathered in sheaves.

Margaret Postgate Cole “The Veteran”

We came upon him sitting in the sun

Blinded by war, and left. And past the fence
There came young soldiers from the Hand and Flower, 1
Asking advice of his experience.
And he said this, and that, and told them tales,
And all the nightmares of each empty head
Blew into air; then, hearing us beside,
“Poor chaps, how'd they know what it's like?” he said.
And we stood there, and watched him as he sat,
Turning his sockets where they went away,
Until it came to one of us to ask “And you're-how old?”
“Nineteen, the third of May.”

Rupert Brooke, “The Soldier,” (1914)

If I should die, think only this of me:

That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be

1
The Hand and Flower is a pub.
 In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.