| Our brains ache, in the merciless iced
east winds that knive us . . . |
| Wearied we keep awake because the night
is silent . . . |
| Low, drooping flares confuse our memory
of the salient . . . |
| Worried by silence, sentries whisper,
curious, nervous, |
But nothing happens.
|
| Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging
on the wire, |
| Like twitching agonies of men among its
brambles. |
| Northward, incessantly, the flickering
gunnery rumbles, |
| Far off, like a dull rumour of some
other war. |
What are we doing here?
|
| The poignant misery of dawn begins to
grow . . . |
| We only know war lasts, rain soaks, and
clouds sag stormy. |
| Dawn massing in the east her melancholy
army |
| Attacks once more in ranks on shivering
ranks of gray, |
But nothing happens.
|
| Sudden successive flights of bullets
streak the silence. |
| Less deadly than the air that shudders
black with snow, |
| With sidelong flowing flakes that
flock, pause, and renew, |
| We watch them wandering up and down the
wind’s nonchalance, |
But nothing happens.
|
| Pale flakes with fingering stealth come
feeling for our faces ― |
| We cringe in holes, back on forgotten
dreams, and stare, snow-dazed, |
| Deep into grassier ditches. So we
drowse, sun-dozed, |
| Littered with blossoms trickling where
the blackbird fusses. |
Is it that we are dying?
|
| Slowly our ghosts drag home: glimpsing
the sunk fires, glozed |
| With crusted dark-red jewels; crickets
jingle there; |
| For hours the innocent mice rejoice:
the house is theirs; |
| Shutters and doors, all closed: on us
the doors are closed,― |
We turn our back to our dying.
|
| Since we believe not otherwise can kind
fires burn; |
| Nor ever suns smile true on child, or
field, or fruit. |
| For God’s invincible spring our love is
made afraid; |
| Therefore, not loath, we lie out here;
therefore were born, |
For love of God seems dying.
|
| To-night, His frost will fasten on this
mud and us, |
| Shriveling many hands, puckering
foreheads crisp. |
| The burying-party, picks and shovels in
their shaking grasp, |
| Pause over half-known faces. All their
eyes are ice, |
But nothing happens.
|
| Wilfred Owen
| Classic Poems |
| |
|
[ Anthem for Doomed Youth ] [ Dulce et Decorum est ] [ Exposure ] [ Strange Meeting ] [ The Send-Off ] [ The Sentry ] |
