Sorrow of War. Poems

DEAD IN GALLIPOLI



        He died in Gallipoli.

            What English flower

That we cherish shall grow of him?

            Never a flower

Shall grow that we know of him!

    No white daisy-coverlet

Shall grow from the ground of him;

    No English bird-loverlet

Pipe love-songs around of him.

Under the sycamore

    His grave not appears,

Where the crocuses flicker more

    Than armies with spears.

Under no tree at all

    England designed

His body may be at all

    Gently consigned.


        He died in Gallipoli

                The death on a stake.

            Gallipoli poison

Is now the great part of him.

                A flower like a snake

Shall writhe from the heart of him.

        The desolate surf

Below him is muttering.

        Over his turf

    A bird like a devil

Is flapping and fluttering.

    The poisonous bird

        Whose scarlet eye glowers,

        The poisonous flowers

            With petals unclean

    Are the only things heard

            And the only things seen.


Is that the whole of you,

    White lad from England,

Is that the soul of you,

        Dead in Gallipoli?

You are dead to me, dead to me,

            Barren and far,

But a Thing that was said to me,

            By a bird, by a star,

        —An old thing of solace,

    O stupid it seemed;

And I now cannot tell at all

If the whisper that fell at all

    I heard or I dreamed.

        It seemed that I caught a

    Faint whisper or sign,

        Being drunken with water,

    Or hallowed with wine.


Ah, would that I knew

    What the Word was that came,

        What the Thing was that gleamed

    With a wind and a flame;

Ah, would that I knew,

            Even as you,

O white lad from England,

White lad from England,

        Dead in Gallipoli,

Would that I knew

        If I heard or I dreamed!

A JOURNEY SOUTH



To the South lands, the green lands, from the

            North, the harsh

    Rocks, where the eagles whose granite bills

    Screech from the scars of toppling hills.

To the South lands, the green lands, from the

            North, the marsh

    Hollows which black waste water fills,

                —The South green lands!


To the South lands, the green lands, where

            the flowers of fruit

    Are moons entangled in cosmic trees,

    Where birds are rocks in the foam of seas,

The wind's a player, the grass a lute

    Whose wires are swept by the wings of bees,

                —The South green lands!


To the South lands, the green lands—but

            halt, O hark!

    A sob of birds in a poisoned wood!

    The fume of poppies crushed foul in mud!

The whine of the wings of Death through the dark!

    A sunset of flame, a moon of blood!

                —The South red lands!

THE NEW TRADE

In the market-places they have made

    A dolorous new trade.

Now you will see in the fierce naphtha-light,

    Piled hideously to sight,

Dead limbs of men bronzed in the over-seas,

    Bomb-wrenched from elbows and knees;

Torn feet, that would, unwearied by harsh loads,

    Have tramped steep moorland roads;

Torn hands that would have moulded exquisitely

    Rare things for God to see.

And there are eyes there—blue like blue doves' wings,

    Black like the Libyan kings,

Grey as before-dawn rivers, willow-stirred,

    Brown as a singing-bird;

But all stare from the dark into the dark,

    Reproachful, tense, and stark.

Eyes heaped on trays and in broad baskets there,

    Feet, hands, and ropes of hair.

In the market-places ... and women buy ...

    ... Naphtha glares ... hawkers cry ...

Fat men rub hands....

                    O God, O just God, send

    Plague, lightnings ...

                    Make an end!