The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry

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The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry Page 27

by Various Contributors


  Generation (1917), A

  250

  Gethsemane 130

  Ghosts crying down the vistas of the years, 255

  Girl to Soldier on Leave 174

  God heard the embattled nations sing and shout 19

  Going Back 179

  Greater Love 93

  Grotesque 67

  Halted against the shade of a last hill,

  133

  Happy boy, happy boy, 25

  Happy is England Now 12

  Have you forgotten yet?… 267

  ‘Have you news of my boy Jack?’ 164

  He drowsed and was aware of silence heaped 220

  He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark, 252

  He’s gone, and all our plans 97

  Head to limp head, the sunk-eyed wounded scanned 211

  Headquarters 120

  Here lies a clerk who half his life had spent 154

  Here on the blind verge of infinity 88

  ‘Hi-diddle-diddle 162

  High Wood 257

  His Mate 162

  Home Service 170

  Hospital Sanctuary 209

  How still this quiet cornfield is to-night! 8

  Hugh Selwyn Mauberley: V 248

  I am banished from the patient men who fight

  79

  I could not look on Death, which being known, 162

  ‘I don’t want to be a soldier’ 26

  I don’t want to be a soldier, 26

  ‘I have a rendezvous with Death’ 105

  I have a rendezvous with Death 105

  I have been young, and now am not too old; 231

  I have borne my cross through Flanders, 232

  I have come to the borders of sleep, 103

  I hear the tinkling of the cattle bell, 75

  I knew a man, he was my chum, 98

  ‘I looked up from my writing’ 195

  I looked up from my writing, 195

  I love you, great new Titan! 24

  I love you – Titan lover, 174

  I saw, 190

  I saw the bodies of earth’s men 132

  I saw the people climbing up the street 186

  I see a farmer walking by himself 202

  I shall be mad if you get smashed about; 114

  I strayed about the deck, an hour, to-night 45

  I, too, saw God through mud – 81

  ‘I tracked a dead man down a trench’ 110

  I tracked a dead man down a trench, 110

  ‘I want to go home’ 166

  I want to go home, 166

  I was wrong, quite wrong; 151

  I wonder if the old cow died or not? 113

  ‘I wore a tunic’ 180

  I wore a tunic, 180

  ‘I’m sorry I done it, Major.’ 163

  If any question why we died, 245

  If I should die, think only this of me: 108

  If it were not for England, who would bear 36

  If We Return 167

  If we return, will England be 167

  If ye Forget 269

  If you should die, think only this of me 109

  Illusions 59

  In A Soldiers’ Hospital I: Pluck 207

  In A Soldiers’ Hospital II: Gramophone Tunes 208

  In all his glory the sun was high and glowing 277

  In Barracks 37

  In bitter London’s heart of stone, 176

  In cities and in hamlets we were born, 274

  In Flanders Fields 155

  In Flanders fields the poppies blow 155

  In Memoriam Private D. Sutherland killed in

  Action in the German Trench, May 16, 1916,

  and the Others who Died 95

  In sodden trenches I have heard men speak, 249

  In the bleak twilight, when the roads are hoar 239

  In the last letter that I had from France 165

  In the Trenches 51

  In Training 39

  Indifferent, flippant, earnest, but all bored, 27

  Into Battle 101

  It Is Near Toussaints 229

  It is near Toussaints, the living and dead will say: 229

  It is plain now what you are. Your head has dropped 149

  It seemed that it were well to kiss first earth 168

  It seemed that out of the battle I escaped 159

  It was after the Somme, our line was quieter, 64

  It’s a Queer Time 127

  It’s hard to know if you’re alive or dead 127

  Kiss, The

  31

  Ladies and gentlemen, this is High Wood,

  257

  ‘Lads, you’re wanted, go and help,’ 22

  Lamplight 261

  Last Post, The 38

  Let me forget – Let me forget, 269

  Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade 32

  Let the foul Scene proceed: 6

  Let us remember Spring will come again 204

  Lights Out 103

  Louse Hunting 68

  Marching Men

  43

  Marionettes, The 6

  May, 1915 204

  Memorial Tablet 244

  Memory, A 145

  Men Fade Like Rocks 256

  ‘Men Who March Away’ 41

  Mental Cases 218

  Midnight Skaters, The 270

  Moonrise over Battlefield 61

  Mother, The 109

  Move him into the sun – 54

  My Boy Jack 164

  My Company 83

  My son was killed while laughing at some jest. I

  would I knew 194

  My soul, dread not the pestilence that hags 224

  Nameless Men

  92

  Navigators, The 132

  Next War, The 272

  Night shatters in mid-heaven: the bark of guns, 185

  1914: Peace 11

  1914: Safety 29

  1914: The Dead 156

  1914: The Dead 157

  1914: The Soldier 108

  Not that we are weary, 51

  Not to Keep 178

  Not yet will those measureless fields be green again 237

  Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour, 11

  Now light the candles; one; two; there’s a moth; 214

  ‘Now that you too must shortly go the way’ 30

  Now that you too must shortly go the way 30

  Now we can say of those who died unsung, 227

  Nudes, stark and glistening, 68

  O how comely it was and how reviving

  69

  O living pictures of the dead, 192

  On Passing the New Menin Gate 247

  On Receiving the First News of the War 5

  On Somme 125

  ‘On the idle hill of summer’ 1

  On the idle hill of summer 1

  One got peace of heart at last, the dark march over, 66

  Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knife us… 55

  ‘Out of the Mouths of Babes –’ 243

  Out of the smoke of men’s wrath, 129

  Over the flat slope of St. Eloi 58

  Paris, November 11, 1918

  228

  Pavement, The 176

  Peace (1914: Peace) 11

  Peace Celebration 227

  Picnic 197

  Picture-Show 258

  Poem: Abbreviated from the Conversation of Mr. T. E. H. 58

  Poets are Waiting, The 17

  Portrait of a Coward 206

  Preparations for Victory 224

  Prisoners 161

  Private, A 153

  Question, The

  113

  Ragtime(Wilfrid Gibson)

  182

  Ragtime(Osbert Sitwell) 183

  Recalling War 263

  Recruiting 22

  Red lips are not so red 93

  Redeemer, The 62

  Remember, on your knees, 184

  Report on Experience 231

  Repression of War Exper
ience 214

  Reserve 173

  Retreat(Youth in Arms III: Retreat) 137

  Returning, We Hear The Larks 65

  Rise up, rise up, 20

  Rock-like the souls of men 256

  Rondeau of a Conscientious Objector 28

  Safety(1914: Safety)

  29

  Saints have adored the lofty soul of you. 106

  Send-off, The 44

  Serenade 64

  Servitude(Sonnets 1917: Servitude) 36

  Shell, The 123

  Shining pins that dart and click 189

  Shrieking its message the flying death 123

  Sick Leave 172

  Silence, The 239

  Silent One, The 60

  Since Rose a classic taste possessed, 212

  Smile, Smile, Smile 211

  Snow is a strange white word; 5

  So you were David’s father, 95

  Socks 189

  Soldier(Youth in Arms II: Soldier) 40

  Soldier, The(1914: The Soldier) 108

  Soldier Addresses His Body, The 114

  Soldier: Twentieth Century 24

  Soliloquy II 151

  Sombre the night is: 65

  Song of the Dark Ages 35

  Sonnets 1917: Servitude 36

  Sower, The 74

  Spring Offensive 133

  Squire nagged and bullied till I went to fight, 244

  Strange Hells 254

  Strange Meeting 159

  Such, such is Death: no triumph: no defeat: 106

  Suddenly into the still air burst thudding 125

  Superfluous Woman, The 255

  Survivor Comes Home, The 171

  That is not war – oh it hurts! I am lame.

  137

  That night your great guns, unawares, 2

  The barrack-square, washed clean with rain, 37

  The battery grides and jingles, 116

  The Bishop tells us: ‘When the boys come back 205

  The bugler sent a call of high romance – 38

  The darkness crumbles away – 48

  The floors are slippery with blood: 193

  The Garden called Gethsemane 130

  The hop-poles stand in cones, 270

  The hours have tumbled their leaden, monotonous sands 28

  The House is crammed: tier beyond tier they grin 181

  The hush begins. Nothing is heard 241

  The lamps glow here and there, then echo down 183

  The long war had ended. 272

  The men that worked for England 245

  The naked earth is warm with Spring, 101

  The night falls over London. City and sky 4

  The night is still and the air is keen, 126

  The night turns slowly round, 179

  The plunging limbers over the shattered track 146

  The rain is slipping, dripping down the street; 187

  The Town has opened to the sun. 122

  The wind is cold and heavy 39

  There are strange Hells within the minds War made 254

  There died a myriad, 248

  There is not anything more wonderful 12

  There was a time that’s gone 250

  There was a water dump there, and regimental 70

  There was no sound at all, no crying in the village, 145

  There’s the girl who clips your ticket for the train, 169

  ‘Therefore is the name of it called Babel’ 76

  These are the damned circles Dante trod, 67

  These hearts were woven of human joys and cares, 157

  These, in the day when heaven was falling, 246

  ‘They’ 205

  They gave me this name like their nature, 80

  They sent him back to her. The letter came 178

  This is no case of petty Right or Wrong 15

  This is no case of petty right or wrong 15

  This ploughman dead in battle slept out of doors 153

  Though you desire me I will still feign sleep 173

  Through long nursery nights he stood 216

  Through the long ward the gramophone 208

  Tired with dull grief, grown old before my day, 259

  To a Conscript of 1940 275

  To Germany 16

  To his Love 97

  To these I turn, in these I trust; 31

  To what God 17

  To you who’d read my songs of War 150

  Trench Poets 98

  Trenches in the moonlight, allayed with lulling moonlight 59

  True he’d have fought to death if the Germans came – 206

  Trumpet, The 20

  Two children in my garden playing found 243

  Two Fusiliers 230

  Two Sonnets 106

  Under the level winter sky

  43

  Veteran, The

  213

  Vlamertinghe: Passing the Chateau, July, 1917 72

  Volunteer, The 154

  War

  77

  War and Peace 249

  War Books 265

  War Film, A 190

  War Films, The 192

  War Generation: Ave, The 274

  War Girls 169

  ‘We are Fred Karno’s army’ 34

  We are Fred Karno’s army, we are the ragtime infantry. 34

  We ate our breakfast lying on our backs, 50

  We came upon him sitting in the sun, 213

  We digged our trenches on the down 35

  We lay and ate sweet hurt-berries 197

  We marched, and saw a company of Canadians 78

  We planned to shake the world together, you and I 261

  We’d gained our first objective hours before 135

  We’re here 57

  ‘We’re here because we’re here’ 57

  What did they expect of our toil and extreme 265

  What of the faith and fire within us 41

  What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? 131

  When I’m asleep, dreaming and lulled and warm, – 172

  ‘When this bloody war is over’ 222

  When this bloody war is over, 222

  When you have lost your all in a world’s upheaval, 209

  ‘When you see millions of the mouthless dead’ 158

  When you see millions of the dead 158

  Where war has left its wake of whitened bone, 77

  Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight? 218

  Who died on the wires, and hung there, one of two – 60

  Who will remember, passing through this Gate, 247

  Who’s for the trench – 21

  Wife and Country 173

  Winter Warfare 53

  With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children, 235

  Woodbine Willie 80

  You are blind like us. Your hurt no man designed,

  16

  You became 83

  Youth in Arms I 25

  Youth in Arms II: Soldier 40

  Youth in Arms III: Retreat 137

  Youth in Arms IV: Carrion 149

  Zeppelins

  186

 

 

 


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