The Complete Poems

  I clutch at air,

  I must wake. It’s the nightmare!

  No, some warlock’s spell has bound me,

  Creatures hop around, around me,

  Hop and scream – it is a dream.

  Dream and Life like brothers seem.

  I must make the holy sign:

  Warlocks waste away and pine

  At the sign – they waste and pine.

  Are these fingers thine or mine?

  Move, you fingers, do my will;

  Mark the sign for good or ill,

  On my breast the crosses make.

  At the sign, they waste, they pine.

  God be praised! I am awake.

  THE DRAGON-FLY

  Who’d drag the yet unopened lily-bud

  Slim stalk far-trailing, from the lake-floor up,

  To desecrate the gold and silver cup

  With oozy slime and black befouling mud?

  Not I, by Hera! Like the dragon-fly

  In blue and sable would I skim instead

  Where lap the waves around the lily-bed,

  Desiring nought but only to be nigh.

  BOY-MORALITY

  I have apples in a very pleasant orchard

  But I may not eat thereof.

  I have shining fish in a blue-watered lake:

  They are easily taken in the meshes of a net,

  But their flesh is poison.

  I have deer in a scented pine-forest

  It is good sport hunting them with bows:

  Their venison is tender as the flesh of young lambs,

  But whoso eateth, dyeth.

  The load that I dragged uphill has slipped backward:

  The rope has run scorching through my hands.

  I must now return to the hill’s very bottom,

  And the toil upward will be harder than ever before.

  When to this spot I have again dragged my burden,

  I shall remember my former folly, and all that ensued.

  I shall strengthen my heart with a high endeavour,

  And with my hands shall I take a surer hold.

  I have apples in a very pleasant orchard,

  I have shining fish in a blue-watered lake,

  I have deer in a pine-scented forest,

  But I may not eat lest I die.

  THE CORACLE

  The youngest poet launched his boat

  A wattle-laboured coracle,

  He sang for joy to feel it float:

  ‘A miracle! A coracle!

  I have launched a boat, I feel it float,

  And all the waves cry miracle.

  ‘I wrenched the wattles from their tree

  For the weaving of my coracle,

  I thumped the slimy clay, and see!

  A miracle! A coracle!

  I have built a boat, I feel it float,

  And all the land cries miracle.

  ‘With patient care her ribs I wove,

  My beautiful new coracle,

  With clumsy fingers taught by love –

  A miracle, my coracle!

  I have built a boat, I feel it float,

  And all the air cries miracle.’

  THE LAST DROP

  The fires are heated, watch Old Age

  Crowd up to hear the torture-cry:

  In sacrifice for private rage

  He has sentenced Youth to die.

  But Youth in love with fire and smoke

  Hugs the hot coals to his heart,

  And dies still laughing at the joke

  That his delight shall make Age smart.

  A moral, gentle sirs, who stop

  At home and fight to the last drop!

  For look, Old Age weeps for the dead,

  Shivers and coughs and howls ‘Bread, Bread!’

  TRENCH LIFE

  Fear never dies, much as we laugh at fear

  For pride’s sake and for other cowards’ sakes,

  And when we see some new Death, bursting near,

  Rip those that laugh in pieces, God! it shakes

  Sham fortitude that went so proud at first,

  And stops the clack of mocking tongues awhile

  Until (o pride, pride!) at the next shell-burst

  Cowards dare mock again and twist a smile.

  Yet we who once, before we came to fight,

  Drowned our prosperity in a waste of grief,

  Contrary now find such perverse delight

  In utter fear and misery, that Belief

  Blossoms from mud, and under the rain’s whips,

  Flagellant-like we writhe with laughing lips.

  THROUGH THE PERISCOPE†

  Trench stinks of shallow-buried dead

  Where Tom stands at the periscope,

  Tired out. After nine months he’s shed

  All fear, all faith, all hate, all hope.

  Sees with uninterested eye

  Beyond the barbed wire, a gay bed

  Of scarlet poppies and the lie

  Of German trench behind that red: –

  Six poplar trees…a rick…a pond

  A ruined hamlet and a mine…

  More trees, more houses and beyond

  La Bassée spire in gold sunshine.

  The same thoughts always haunt his brain,

  Two sad, one scarcely comforting,

  First second third and then again

  The first and the second silly thing.

  The first ‘It’s now nine months and more

  Since I’ve drunk British beer’ the second

  ‘The last few years of this mad war

  Will be the cushiest, I’ve reckoned’

  The third ‘The silly business is

  I’ll only die in the next war,

  Suppose by luck I get thro’ this,

  Just ‘cause I wasn’t killed before.’

  Quietly laughs, and at that token

  The first thought should come round again

  But crack!

  The weary circle’s broken

  And a bullet tears thro’ the tired brain.

  MACHINE GUN FIRE: CAMBRIN

  (September 25 1915)

  The torn line wavers, breaks, and falls.

  ‘Get up, come on!’ the captain calls

  ‘Get up, the Welsh, and on we go!’

  (Christ, that my lads should fail me so!)

  A dying boy grinned up and said:

  ‘The whole damned company, sir; it’s dead.’

  ‘Come on! Cowards!’ bawled the captain, then

  Fell killed, among his writhing men.

  THE FUSILIER – (For Peter)

  I left the heated mess-room, the drinkers and the cardplayers

  My jolly brother officers all laughing and drinking

  And giving them goodnight, I shut the door behind me

  Stepped quickly past the corner and came upon the wind.

  A strong wind a steady wind a cool wind was blowing

  And flowed like a waterflood about the steamy windows

  And washed against my face, and bore on me refreshfully:

  Its good to step out into the beautiful wind!

  But giving goodnight to that gallant hearty company

  And walking all alone through the greyness of evening

  The sparkle of wine and the quick fire went out of me

  My gay whistle faded and left me heavy hearted

  Remembering the last time I’d seen you and talked with you –

  (Its seldom the Fusilier goes twice across the parapet

  Twice across the parapet, returning safe again)

  Yet Life’s the heated messroom and when I go under

  That cool wind will blow away the Fusilier, the furious

  The callous rough ribald-tongue the Fusilier captain

  The gallant merry Fusilier that drank in the messroom

  He’ll drain his glass, nod good-night and out into the wind,

  While the quiet one the poet the lover remaining

  Will meet you litt
le singer and go with you and keep you

  And turn away bad women and spill the cup of poison

  And fill your heart with beauty and teach you to love.

  Forget, then, the Fusilier: you’ll never understand him,

  You’ll never love a Regiment as he has learned to love one

  Forget the Fusilier: there are others will remember him

  In the jolly old mess-room, the pleasant idle messroom

  But for you let the strong sea wind blow him away.

  O

  What is that colour on the sky

  Remotely hinting long-ago,

  That splendid apricot-silver? Why,

  That was the colour of my ‘O’ –

  It’s strange I can’t forget –

  In my first alphabet.

  TO MY UNBORN SON†

  A Dream

  Last night, my son, your pretty mother came

  Bravely into the forest of my dreams:

  I laughed, and sprang to her with feet of flame,

  And kissed her on the lips: how queer it seems

  That the first power of woman-love should leap

  So sudden on a grown man in his sleep!

  She smiled, and kissed me back, a lovely thing

  Of slender limbs and yellow braided hair:

  She set my slow heart madly fluttering,

  Her silver beauty through the shadowed air.

  But oh, I wish she’d told me at first sight,

  Why she was breaking on my dreams last night!

  For tears to kisses suddenly succeeded,

  And she was pleading, pleading, son, for you:

  ‘Oh, let me have my little child,’ she pleaded,

  ‘Give me my child, as you alone can do.’

  And, oh, it hurt me, turning a deaf ear,

  To say ‘No, no!’ and ‘No, no, no!’ to her.

  I was most violent, I was much afraid

  She’d buy my freedom with a kiss or curl,

  And when she saw she’d die a sad old maid,

  She wept most piteously, poor pretty girl –

  But still, if Day, recalling Night’s romance

  Should write a sequel, child, you’ve got a chance.

  RETURN

  ‘Farewell,’ the Corporal cried, ‘La Bassée trenches!

  No Cambrins for me now, no more Givenchies,

  And no more bloody brickstacks – God Almighty,

  I’m back again at last to dear old Blighty.’

  But cushy wounds don’t last a man too long,

  And now, poor lad, he sings this bitter song:

  ‘Back to La Bassée, to the same old hell,

  Givenchy, Cuinchey, Cambrin, Loos, Vermelles.’

  THE SAVAGE STORY OF CARDONETTE†

  To Cardonette, to Cardonette,

  Back from the Marne the Bosches came

  With hearts like lead, with feet that bled

  To Cardonette in the morning.

  They hurry fast through Cardonette:

  No time to stop or ask the name,

  No time to loot or rape or shoot

  In Cardonette this morning.

  They hurry fast through Cardonette,

  But close behind with eyes of flame

  The Turco steals upon their heels

  Through Cardonette in the morning.

  And half a mile from Cardonette

  He caught those Bosches tired and lame,

  He charged and broke their ranks like smoke

  By Cardonette in the morning.

  At Cardonette, at Cardonette,

  He taught the Bosche a pretty game:

  He cut off their ears for souvenirs

  At Cardonette in the morning.

  DIED OF WOUNDS†

  And so they marked me dead, the day

  That I turned twenty-one?

  They counted me as dead, did they,

  The day my childhood slipped away

  And manhood was begun?

  Oh, that was fit and that was right!

  Now, Daddy Time, with all your spite,

  Buffet me how you can,

  You’ll never make a man of me

  For I lie dead in Picardy,

  Rather than grow to man.

  Oh that was the right day to die

  The twenty-fourth day of July!

  God smiled

  Beguiled

  By a wish so wild,

  And let me always stay a child.

  SIX POEMS FROM ‘THE PATCHWORK FLAG’ (1918)

  FOREWORD†

  Here is a patchwork lately made

  Of antique silk and flower-brocade

  Old faded scraps in memory rich

  Sewn each to each with featherstitch.

  But when you stare aghast perhaps

  At certain muddied khaki scraps

  And trophy fragments of field-grey

  Clotted and stained that shout dismay

  At broidered birds and silken flowers;

  Blame these black times: their fault, not ours.

  LETTER TO S.S. FROM BRYN-Y-PIN†

  Poor Fusilier aggrieved with fate

  That lets you lag in France so late,

  When all our friends of two years past

  Are free of trench and wire at last

  Dear lads, one way or the other done

  With grim-eyed War and homeward gone

  Crippled with wounds or daft or blind,

  Or leaving their dead clay behind,

  Where still you linger, lone and drear,

  Last of the flock, poor Fusilier.

  Now your brief letters home pretend

  Anger and scorn that this false friend

  This fickle Robert whom you knew

  To writhe once, tortured just like you,

  By world-pain and bound impotence

  Against all Europe’s evil sense

  Now snugly lurks at home to nurse

  His wounds without complaint, and worse

  Preaches ‘The Bayonet’ to Cadets

  On a Welsh hill-side, grins, forgets.

  That now he rhymes of trivial things

  Children, true love and robins’ wings

  Using his tender nursery trick.

  Though hourly yet confused and sick

  From those foul shell-holes drenched in gas

  The stumbling shades to Lethe pass –

  ‘Guilty’ I plead and by that token

  Confess my haughty spirit broken

  And my pride gone; now the least chance

  Of backward thought begins a dance

  Of marionettes that jerk cold fear

  Against my sick mind: either ear

  Rings with dark cries, my frightened nose

  Smells gas in scent of hay or rose,

  I quake dumb horror, till again

  I view that dread La Bassée plain

  Drifted with smoke and groaning under

  The echoing strokes of rival thunder

  That crush surrender from me now.

  Twelve months ago, on an oak bough

  I hung, absolved of further task,

  My dinted helmet, my gas mask,

  My torn trench tunic with grim scars

  Of war; so tamed the wrath of Mars

  With votive gifts and one short prayer.

  ‘Spare me! Let me forget, O spare!’

  ‘Guilty’ I’ve no excuse to give

  While in such cushioned ease I live

  With Nancy and fresh flowers of June

  And poetry and my young platoon,

  Daring how seldom search behind

  In those back cupboards of my mind

  Where lurk the bogeys of old fear,

  To think of you, to feel you near

  By our old bond, poor Fusilier.

  NIGHT MARCH†

  Evening: beneath tall poplar trees

  We soldiers eat and smoke and sprawl,

  Write letters home, enjoy our ease,

  When suddenly comes a ringing call.


  ‘Fall in!’ A stir, and up we jump,

  Fold the love letter, drain the cup,

  We toss away the Woodbine stump,

  Snatch at the pack and jerk it up.

  Soon with a roaring song we start,

  Clattering along a cobbled road,

  The foot beats quickly like the heart,

  And shoulders laugh beneath their load.

  Where are we marching? No one knows,

  Why are we marching? No one cares.

  For every man follows his nose,

  Towards the gay West where sunset flares.

  An hour’s march: we halt: forward again,

  Wheeling down a small road through trees.

  Curses and stumbling: puddled rain

  Shines dimly, splashes feet and knees.

  Silence, disquiet: from those trees

  Far off a spirit of evil howls.

  ‘Down to the Somme’ wail the banshees

  With the long mournful voice of owls.

  The trees are sleeping, their souls gone,

  But in this time of slumbrous trance

  Old demons of the night take on

  Their windy foliage, shudder and dance.

  Out now: the land is bare and wide,

  A grey sky presses overhead.

  Down to the Somme! In fields beside

  Our tramping column march the dead.

  Our comrades who at Festubert

  And Loos and Ypres lost their lives,

  In dawn attacks, in noonday glare,

  On dark patrols from sudden knives.

  Like us they carry packs, they march

  In fours, they sling their rifles too,

  But long ago they’ve passed the arch

  Of death where we must yet pass through.

  Seven miles: we halt awhile, then on!

  I curse beneath my burdening pack

  Like Sinbad when with sigh and groan

  He bore the old man on his back.

  A big moon shines across the road,

  Ten miles: we halt: now on again

  Drowsily marching; the sharp goad

  Blunts to a dumb and sullen pain.

  A man falls out: we others go

  Ungrudging on, but our quick pace

  Full of hope once, grows dull, and slow:

  No talk: nowhere a smiling face.

  Above us glares the unwinking moon,

  Beside us march the silent dead:

  My train of thought runs mazy, soon

  Curious fragments crowd my head.

  I puzzle old things learned at school,

  Half riddles, answerless, yet intense,