Soon I stood up. The wind stirred perpetually the low bushes; but I heard few sounds of it. My mind was weary with the day just over: I saw anew dead men, torn beasts: and heard the voices of guns, and the thousand echoes of battle. Useless sacrifice the struggle seemed at this solemn hour. Presently the night air crept through my coat, and sent my hands into pockets and myself moving up and down. For all my watching no signal appeared; but instead my footsteps sounded ever more mournfully on the path. Nobody was here to say an army slept in the ragged scrub on either side. Finally, to lose my thoughts, I fell to putting together a battle prayer.
EVENING BATTLE PRAYER
Trench by trench, along the line,
Dies the spluttering musketry;
And the gunners at their guns
Lay the heavy shrapnel by.
Now the wearied flying-man
Glides in circles from the sky:
And, across the dimming bay,
Move the armoured ships away.