Trains, trains, trains
With their coach sides scrawled
With chalked bravado and, sometimes,
With their windows black
With yelling boys,
In open-mouthed exultation
That they do not feel,
Rushing farther and farther
From the known into the unseeable.
Trains, trains, trains
With sky-larking boys in khaki,
Munching sandwiches and drinking pop;
Or, tired and without their depot swagger,
Curled up on the red-plush seats;
Or asleep, with a stranger, in the Pullmans.
They rush past our camp,
Which lies against the railroad,
With the crossing alarm jangling caution,
And fade into the dust or night.
Leaving us to conjecture where,
As they have left others to wonder—
As they must wonder themselves
When they are done
With the shouting and hand-shaking
And kissing and hat-waving and singing.
Trains, trains, trains
Clicking on into unforecast days—
Away from the shelter and security
Of the accustomed into the Great Adventure.
CHRIST IN FLANDERS
L. W.
In The Spectator
WE had forgotten You, or very nearly—
You did not seem to touch us very nearly—
Of course we thought about You now and then;
Especially in any time of trouble—
We knew that You were good in time of trouble—
But we are very ordinary men.
And there were always other things to think of—
There’s lots of things a man has got to think of—
His work, his home, his pleasure, and his wife;
And so we only thought of You on Sunday—
Sometimes, perhaps, not even on a Sunday—
Because there’s always lots to fill one’s life.
And, all the while, in the street or lane or byway—
In country lane, in city street, or byway—
You walked among us, and we did not see.
Your feet were bleeding as You walked our pavements—
How did we miss Your Footprints on our pavements?—
Can there be other folk as blind as we?
Now we remember; over here in Flanders—
(It isn’t strange to think of You in Flanders)—
This hideous warfare seems to make things clear.
We never thought about You much in England—
But now that we are far away from England—
We have no doubts, we know that You are here.