The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry by Various Contributors

of men have bled where no wounds were.
    I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
    40             I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned
    Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
    I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
    Let us sleep now…’
    Wilfred Owen
    Prisoners
    Comrades of risk and rigour long ago
    Who have done battle under honour’s name,
    Hoped (living or shot down) some meed of fame,
    And wooed bright Danger for a thrilling kiss, –
    Laugh, oh laugh well, that we have come to this!
    Laugh, oh laugh loud, all ye who long ago
    Adventure found in gallant company!
    Safe in Stagnation, laugh, laugh bitterly,
    While on this filthiest backwater of Time’s flow
    10             Drift we and rot, till something sets us free!
    Laugh like old men with senses atrophied,
    Heeding no Present, to the Future dead,
    Nodding quite foolish by the warm fireside
    And seeing no flame, but only in the red
    And flickering embers, pictures of the past: –
    Life like a cinder fading black at last.
    F. W. Harvey
    His Mate
    â€˜Hi-diddle-diddle
    The cat and the fiddle‘…
    I raised my head,
    And saw him seated on a heap of dead,
    Yelling the nursery-tune,
    Grimacing at the moon…
    â€˜And the cow jumped over the moon.
    The little dog laughed to see such sport
    And the dish ran away with the spoon.’
    10             And, as he stopt to snigger,
    I struggled to my knees and pulled the trigger.
    Wilfrid Gibson
    Epitaphs: The Coward
    I could not look on Death, which being known,
    Men led me to him, blindfold and alone.
    Rudyard Kipling
    The Deserter
    â€˜I’m sorry I done it, Major.’
    We bandaged the livid face;
    And led him, ere the wan sun rose,
    To die his death of disgrace.
    The bolt-heads locked to the cartridge;
    The rifles steadied to rest,
    As cold stock nestled at colder cheek
    And foresight lined on the breast.
    â€˜
Fire!
’ called the Sergeant-Major.
    10             The muzzles flamed as he spoke:
    And the shameless soul of a nameless man
    Went up in the cordite-smoke.
    Gilbert Frankau
    My Boy Jack
    â€˜Have you news of my boy Jack?’
    Â Â Â Â Â 
Not this tide.
    â€˜When d’you think that he’ll come back?’
    Â Â Â Â Â 
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.
    â€˜Has any one else had word of him?’
    Â Â Â Â Â 
Not this tide.
    For what is sunk will hardly swim,
    Â Â Â Â Â 
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.
    â€˜Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?’
    10                  
None this tide,
    Â Â Â Â Â 
Nor any tide,
    Except he did not shame his kind
–
    Â Â Â Â Â 
Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide.
    Then hold your head up all the more,
    Â Â Â Â Â 
This tide,
    Â Â Â Â Â 
And every tide;
    Because he was the son you bore,
    Â Â Â Â Â 
And gave to that wind blowing and that tide!
    Rudyard Kipling
    Easter Monday
    In the last letter that I had from France
    You thanked me for the silver Easter egg
    Which I had hidden in the box of apples
    You liked to munch beyond all other fruit.
    You found the egg the Monday before Easter,
    And said, ‘I will praise Easter Monday now –
    It was such a lovely morning.’ Then you spoke
    Of the coming battle and said, ‘This is the eve.
    â€˜Good-bye. And may I have a letter soon’.
    10             That Easter Monday was a day for praise,
    It was such a lovely morning. In our garden
    We sowed our earliest seeds, and in the orchard
    The apple-bud was ripe. It was the eve.
    There are three letters that you will not get.
    Eleanor Farjeon

4 BLIGHTY
Going Back
    â€˜
I want to go home
’
    I want to go home,
    I want to go home.
    I