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In sodden trenches I have heard men speak, Though numb and wretched, wise and witty things; And loved them for the stubbornness that clings Longest to laughter when Death's pulleys creak; And seeing cool nurses move on tireless feet To do abominable things with grace, Deemed them sweet sisters in that haunted place Where, with child's voices, strong men howl or bleat. Yet now those men lay stubborn courage by, Riding dull-eyed and silent in the train To old men's stools; or sell gay-coloured socks And listen fearfully for Death; so I Love the low-laughing girls, who now again Go daintily, in thin and flowery frocks.

(after the Russian) The piano has crawled into the quarry. Hauled In last night for firewood, sprawled With frozen barrels, crates and sticks, The piano is waiting for the axe. Legless, a black box, still polished; It lies on its belly like a lizard, Droning, heaving, hardly fashioned For the quarry’s primordial art. Blood red: his frozen fingers cleft, Two on the right hand, five on the left, He goes down on his knees to reach the keyboard, To strike the lizard’s chord. Seven fingers pick out rhymes and rhythm, The frozen skin, steaming, peels off them, As from a boiled potato. Their schemes, Their beauty, ivory and anthracite, Flicker and flash like the great Northern Lights. Everything played before is a great lie. The reflections of flaming chandeliers— Deceit, the white columns, the grand tiers In warm concert halls—wild lies. But the steel of the piano howls in me, I lie in the quarry and I am deft As the lizard. I accept the gift. I’ll be a song for Russia, I’ll be an étude, warmth and bread for everybody.

It was wartime Daisies and Maisies in overalls Worked in factories Snapping gum in their teeth Ration spunk To keep them going Through weekend tours At the local USO Or late nights Checking hats For the Willard rooftop garden It was rough Making ends meet While their men were at war In radio worlds And newspaper print Nights at home were spent reading Letters over and over Like prayers Mouths shaped To the words And Hershey bars Melted on radiators

O living pictures of the dead, O songs without a sound, O fellowship whose phantom tread Hallows a phantom ground— How in a gleam have these revealed The faith we had not found. We have sought God in a cloudy Heaven, We have passed by God on earth: His seven sins and his sorrows seven, His wayworn mood and mirth, Like a ragged cloak have hid from us The secret of his birth. Brother of men, when now I see The lads go forth in line, Thou knowest my heart is hungry in me As for thy bread and wine; Thou knowest my heart is bowed in me To take their death for mine.

There's the girl who clips your ticket for the train, And the girl who speeds the lift from floor to floor, There's the girl who does a milk-round in the rain, And the girl who calls for orders at your door. Strong, sensible, and fit, They're out to show their grit, And tackle jobs with energy and knack. No longer caged and penned up, They're going to keep their end up Till the khaki soldier boys come marching back. There's the motor girl who drives a heavy van, There's the butcher girl who brings your joint of meat, There's the girl who cries 'All fares, please!' like a man, And the girl who whistles taxis up the street. Beneath each uniform Beats a heart that's soft and warm, Though of canny mother-wit they show no lack; But a solemn statement this is, They've no time for love and kisses Till the khaki soldier-boys come marching back.

This dry night, nothing unusual About the clip, clop, casual Iron of his shoes as he stamps death Like a mint on the innocent coinage of earth. I lift the window, watch the ambling feather Of hock and fetlock, loosed from its daily tether In the tinker camp on the Enniskerry Road, Pass, his breath hissing, his snuffling head Down. He is gone. No great harm is done. Only a leaf of our laurel hedge is torn— Of distant interest like a maimed limb, Only a rose which now will never climb The stone of our house, expendable, a mere Line of defence against him, a volunteer You might say, only a crocus, its bulbous head Blown from growth, one of the screamless dead. But we, we are safe, our unformed fear Of fierce commitment gone; why should we care If a rose, a hedge, a crocus are uprooted Like corpses, remote, crushed, mutilated? He stumbles on like a rumour of war, huge Threatening. Neighbours use the subterfuge Of curtains. He stumbles down our short street Thankfully passing us. I pause, wait, Then to breathe relief lean on the sill And for a second only my blood is still With atavism. That rose he smashed frays Ribboned across our hedge, recalling days Of burned countryside, illicit braid: A cause ruined before, a world betrayed.

For a saving grace, we didn't see our dead, Who rarely bothered coming home to die But simply stayed away out there In the clean war, the war in the air. Seldom the ghosts come back bearing their tales Of hitting the earth, the incompressible sea, But stayed up there in the relative wind, Shades fading in the mind, Who had no graves but only epitaphs Where never so many spoke for never so few: Per ardua, said the partisans of Mars, Per aspera, to the stars. That was the good war, the war we won As if there was no death, for goodness's sake. With the help of the losers we left out there In the air, in the empty air.

Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind. Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky And the affrighted steed ran on alone, Do not weep. War is kind. Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment, Little souls who thirst for fight, These men were born to drill and die. The unexplained glory flies above them, Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom— A field where a thousand corpses lie. Do not weep, babe, for war is kind. Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches, Raged at his breast, gulped and died, Do not weep. War is kind. Swift, blazing flag of the regiment, Eagle with crest of red and gold, These men were born to drill and die. Point for them the virtue of slaughter, Make plain to them the excellence of killing And a field where a thousand corpses lie. Mother whose heart hung humble as a button On the bright splendid shroud of your son, Do not weep. War is kind.

I explain the silvered passing of a ship at night The sweep of each sad lost wave The dwindling boom of the steel thing's striving The little cry of a man to a man A shadow falling across the greyer night And the sinking of the small star. Then the waste, the far waste of waters And the soft lashing of black waves For long and in loneliness. Remember, thou, oh ship of love Thou leavest a far waste of waters And the soft lashing of black waves For long and in loneliness.

There is something in the sound of drum and fife That stirs all the savage instincts into life. In the old times of peace we went our ways, Through proper days Of little joys and tasks. Lonely at times, When from the steeple sounded wedding chimes, Telling to all the world some maid was wife— But taking patiently our part in life As it was portioned us by Church and State, Believing it our fate. Our thoughts all chaste Held yet a secret wish to love and mate Ere youth and virtue should go quite to waste. But men we criticised for lack of strength, And kept them at arm's length. Then the war came— The world was all aflame! The men we had thought dull and void of power Were heroes in an hour. He who had seemed a slave to petty greed Showed masterful in that great time of need. He who had plotted for his neighbour's pelf, Now for his fellows offers up himself. And we were only women, forced by war To sacrifice the things worth living for. Something within us broke, Something within us woke, The wild cave-woman spoke. When we heard the sound of drumming, As our soldiers went to camp, Heard them tramp, tramp, tramp; As we watched to see them coming, And they looked at us and smiled (Yes, looked back at us and smiled), As they filed along by hillock and by hollow, Then our hearts were so beguiled That, for many and many a day, We dreamed we heard them say, 'Oh, follow, follow, follow!' And the distant, rolling drum Called us 'Come, come, come!' Till our virtue seemed a thing to give away. War had swept ten thousand years away from earth. We were primal once again. There were males, not modern men; We were females meant to bring their sons to birth. And we could not wait for any formal rite, We could hear them calling to us, 'Come to-night; For to-morrow, at the dawn, We move on!' And the drum Bellowed, 'Come, come, come!' And the fife Whistled, 'Life, life, life!' So they moved on and fought and bled and died; Honoured and mourned, they are the nation's pride. We fought our battles, too, but with the tide Of our red blood, we gave the world new lives. Because we were not wives We are dishonoured. Is it noble, then, To break God's laws only by killing men To save one's country from destruction? We took no man's life but gave our chastity, And sinned the ancient sin To plant young trees and fill felled forests in. Oh, clergy of the land, Bible in hand, All reverently you stand, On holy thoughts intent While barren wives receive the sacrament! Had you the open visions you could see Phantoms of infants murdered in the womb, Who never knew a cradle or a tomb, Hovering about these wives accusingly. Bestow the sacrament! Their sins are not well known— Ours to the four winds of the earth are blown.