‘Back from the trenches, more dead than alive’: A poet urges us to reconsider the true cost of war
Lament
We who are left, how shall we look again
Happily on the sun or feel the rain
Without remembering how they who went
Ungrudgingly and spent
Their lives for us loved, too, the sun and rain?
A bird among the rain-wet lilac sings –
But we, how shall we turn to little things
And listen to the birds and winds and streams
Made holy by their dreams,
Nor feel the heart-break in the heart of things?
The Messages
“I cannot quite remember … There were five
Dropt dead beside me in the trench – and three
Whispered their dying messages to me …”
Back from the trenches, more dead than alive,
Stone-deaf and dazed, and with a broken knee,
He hobbled slowly, muttering vacantly:
“I cannot quite remember … There were five
Dropt dead beside me in the trench – and three
Whispered their dying messages to me …
“Their friends are waiting, wondering how they thrive …
Waiting a word in silence patiently …
But what they said, or who their friends may be,
“I cannot quite remember … There were five
Dropt dead beside me in the trench – and three
Whispered their dying messages to me …”
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