IN AN UNDERGROUND DRESSING-STATION
Quietly they set their burden down: he tried
To grin; moaned; moved his head from side to side.
* * * * * * *
He gripped the stretcher; stiffened; glared; and screamed,
'O put my leg down, doctor, do!' (He'd got
A bullet in his ankle; and he'd been shot
Horribly through the guts.) The surgeon seemed
So kind and gentle, saying, above that crying,
'You must keep still, my lad.' But he was dying.
I STOOD WITH THE DEAD
I stood with the Dead, so forsaken and still:
When dawn was grey I stood with the Dead.
And my slow heart said, 'You must kill, you must kill:
'Soldier, soldier, morning is red.'
On the shapes of the slain in their crumpled disgrace,
I stared for a while through the thin cold rain....
'O lad that I loved, there is rain on your face,
'And your eyes are blurred and sick like the plain.'
I stood with the Dead.... They were dead; they were dead;
My heart and my head beat a march of dismay:
And gusts of the wind came dulled by the guns.
'Fall in!' I shouted; 'Fall in for your pay!'
MEMORIAL TABLET
(GREAT WAR)
Squire nagged and bullied till I went to fight,
(Under Lord Derby's Scheme). I died in hell—
(They called it Passchendaele). My wound was slight,
And I was hobbling back; and then a shell
Burst slick upon the duck-boards: so I fell
Into the bottomless mud, and lost the light.