| 1 | Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us... |
|
Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent... |
|
Low, drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient... |
|
Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous, |
| 5 |
But nothing happens. |
|
Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire, |
|
Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles. |
|
Northward, incessantly, the flickering gunnery rumbles, |
|
Far off, like a dull rumour of some other war. |
| 10 |
What are we doing here? |
|
The poignant misery of dawn begins to grow... |
|
We only know war lasts, rain soaks, and clouds sag stormy. |
|
Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army |
|
Attacks once more in ranks on shivering ranks of gray, |
| 15 |
But nothing happens. |
|
Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence. |
|
Less deathly than the air that shudders black with snow, |
|
With sidelong flowing flakes that flock, pause, and renew; |
|
We watch them wandering up and down the wind's nonchalance, |
| 20 |
But nothing happens. |
|
Pale flakes with fingering stealth come feeling for our faces - |
|
We cringe in holes, back on forgotten dreams, and stare, snow-dazed, |
|
Deep into grassier ditches. So we drowse, sun-dozed, |
|
Littered with blossoms trickling where the blackbird fusses, |
| 25 |
- Is it that we are dying? |
|
Slowly our ghosts drag home: glimpsing the sunk fires, glozed |
|
With crusted dark-red jewels; crickets jingle there; |
|
For hours the innocent mice rejoice: the house is theirs; |
|
Shutters and doors, all closed: on us the doors are closed, - |
| 30 |
We turn back to our dying. |
|
Since we believe not otherwise can kind fires burn; |
|
Nor ever suns smile true on child, or field, or fruit. |
|
For God's invincible spring our love is made afraid; |
|
Therefore, not loath, we lie out here; therefore were born, |
| 35 |
For love of God seems dying. |
|
To-night, this frost will fasten on this mud and us, |
|
Shrivelling many hands, puckering foreheads crisp. |
|
The burying-party, picks and shovels in shaking grasp, |
|
Pause over half-known faces. All their eyes are ice, |
| 40 |
But nothing happens. |
|
 |
