The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry by Various Contributors Page B

the street.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Beneath each uniform
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Beats a heart that’s soft and warm,
    Though of canny mother-wit they show no lack;
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â But a solemn statement this is,
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â They’ve no time for love and kisses
    20                       Till the khaki soldier boys come marching back.
    Jessie Pope
    Home Service
    â€˜At least it wasn’t your fault’ I hear them console
    When they come back, the few that will come back.
    I feel those handshakes now. ‘Well, on the whole
    You didn’t miss much. I wish I had your knack
    Of stopping out. You can still call your soul
    Your own, at any rate. What a priceless slack
    You’ve had, old chap. It must have been top-hole.
    How’s poetry? I bet you’ve written a stack.’
    What shall I say? That it’s been damnable?
    10             That all the time my soul was never my own?
    That we’ve slaved hard at endless make-believe?
    It isn’t only actual war that’s hell,
    I’ll say. It’s spending youth and hope alone
    Among pretences that have ceased to deceive.
    Geoffrey Faber
    The Survivor Comes Home
    Despair and doubt in the blood:
    Autumn, a smell rotten-sweet:
    What stirs in the drenching wood?
    What drags at my heart, my feet?
    What stirs in the wood?
    Nothing stirs, nothing cries.
    Run weasel, cry bird for me,
    Comfort my ears, soothe my eyes!
    Horror on ground, over tree!
    10             Nothing calls, nothing flies.
    Once in a blasted wood,
    A shrieking fevered waste,
    We jeered at Death where he stood:
    I jeered, I too had a taste
    Of Death in the wood.
    Am I alive and the rest
    Dead, all dead? sweet friends
    With the sun they have journeyed west;
    For me now night never ends,
    20             A night without rest.
    Death, your revenge is ripe.
    Spare me! but can Death spare?
    Must I leap, howl to your pipe
    Because I denied you there?
    Your vengeance is ripe.
    Death, ay, terror of Death:
    If I laughed at you, scorned you now
    You flash in my eyes, choke my breath…
    â€˜Safe home.’ Safe? Twig and bough
    30             Drip, drip, drip with Death!
    Robert Graves
    Sick Leave
    When I’m asleep, dreaming and lulled and warm, –
    They come, the homeless ones, the noiseless dead.
    While the dim charging breakers of the storm
    Bellow and drone and rumble overhead,
    Out of the gloom they gather about my bed.
    Â Â Â Â Â They whisper to my heart; their thoughts are mine.
    Â Â Â Â Â â€˜Why are you here with all your watches ended?
    Â Â Â Â Â From Ypres to Frise we sought you in the Line.’
    In bitter safety I awake, unfriended;
    10             And while the dawn begins with slashing rain
    I think of the Battalion in the mud.
    â€˜When are you going out to them again?
    Are they not still your brothers through our blood?’
    Siegfried Sassoon
    Reserve
    Though you desire me I will still feign sleep
    And check my eyes from opening to the day,
    For as I lie, thrilled by your gold-dark flesh,
    I think of how the dead, my dead, once lay.
    Richard Aldington
    Wife and Country
    Â Â Â Â Â Dear, let me thank you for this:
    That you made me remember, in fight,
    Â Â Â Â Â England – all mine at your kiss,
    At the touch of your hands in the night:
    Â Â Â Â Â England – your giving’s delight.
    Gilbert Frankau
    Girl to Soldier on Leave
    I love you – Titan lover,
    My own storm-days’ Titan.
    Greater than