The “crumps” are falling twenty to the minute.
We crouch, and wait the end of it—or us.
Just behind the trench, before, and in it,
The “crumps” are falling twenty to the minute;
(O Framilode! O Maisemore’s laughing linnet!)
Here comes a monster like a motor-bus.
The “crumps” are falling twenty to the minute:
We crouch and wait the end of it—or us.
ACQUIESCENCE
Since I can neither alter my destiny
By one hair’s breadth from its appointed course;
Since bribes nor prayers nor any earthly force
May from its pathway move a life not free—
I must gather together the whole strength of me.
My senses make my willing servitors;
Cherish and feed the better, starve the worse;
Turn all my pride to proud humility.
Meeting the daily shocks and frozen, stony,
Cynical face of doubt with smiles and joy—
As a battle with autumn winds delights a boy,
Before the smut of the world and the lust of money,
Power, and fame, can yet his youth destroy;
Ere he has scorned his Father’s patrimony.
THE STRONG THING
I have seen Death and the faces of men in fear
Of Death, and shattered, terribly ruined flesh,
Appalled; but through the horror, coloured and clear
The love of my county, Gloster, rises afresh.
And on the Day of Days, the Judgment Day,
The Word of Doom awaiting breathless and still,
I’ll marvel how sweet’s the air down Framilode way,
And take my sentence on sheer-down Crickley Hill.
SCOTS
The boys who laughed and jested with me but yesterday,
So fit for kings to speak to, so blithe and proud and gay ...
Are now but thoughts of blind pain, and best hid away....
(Over the top this morning at the dawn’s first grey.)
O, if we catch the Kaiser his dirty hide to flay,
We’ll hang him on a tall tree his pride to allay.
That will not bring the boys again to mountain and brae....
(Over the top this morning at the dawn’s first grey.)
To think—earth’s best and dearest turned to red broken clay
By one devil’s second! What words can we say?
Or what gift has God their mothers’ anguish to repay?...
(Over the top this morning at the first flush of day.)