Ivor Gurney

When I remember plain heroic strength And shining virtue shown by Ypres pools, Then read the blither written by knaves for fools In praise of English soldiers lying at length, Who purely dream what England shall be made Gloriously new, free of the old stains By us, who pay the price that must be paid, Will freeze all winter over Ypres plains. Our silly dreams of peace you put aside And brotherhood of man, for you will see An armed mistress, braggart of the tide, Her children slaves, under your mastery. We'll have a word there too, and forge a knife, Will cut the cancer threatens England's life.

Now, youth, the hour of thy dread passion comes; Thy lovely things must all be laid away; And thou, as others, must face the riven day Unstirred by rattle of the rolling drums, Or bugles' strident cry. When mere noise numbs The sense of being, the sick soul doth sway, Remember thy great craft's honour, that they may say Nothing in shame of poets. Then the crumbs Of praise the little versemen joyed to take Shall be forgotten; then they must know we are, For all our skill in words, equal in might And strong of mettle as those we honoured; make The name of poet terrible in just war, And like a crown of honour upon the fight.

He's gone, and all our plans Are useless indeed. We'll walk no more on Cotswold Where the sheep feed Quietly and take no heed. His body that was so quick Is not as you Knew it, on Severn river Under the blue Driving our small boat through. You would not know him now ... But still he died Nobly, so cover him over With violets of pride Purple from Severn side. Cover him, cover him soon! And with thick-set Masses of memoried flowers— Hide that red wet Thing I must somehow forget.

Little did I dream, England, that you bore me Under the Cotswold hills beside the water meadows,

Only the wanderer Knows England's graces, Or can anew see clear Familiar faces. And who loves joy as he That dwells in shadows? Do not forget me quite, O Severn meadows.

If it were not for England, who would bear This heavy servitude one moment more? To keep a brothel, sweep and wash the floor Of filthiest hovels were noble to compare With this brass-cleaning life. Now here, now there Harried in foolishness, scanned curiously o'er By fools made brazen by conceit, and store Of antique witticisms thin and bare. Only the love of comrades sweetens all, Whose laughing spirit will not be outdone. As night-watching men wait for the sun To hearten them, so wait I on such boys As neither brass nor Hell-fire may appal, Nor guns, nor sergeant-major's bluster and noise.

(To Two Scots Lads) Lying in dug-outs, joking idly, wearily; Watching the candle guttering in the draught; Hearing the great shells go high over us, eerily Singing; how often have I turned over, and laughed With pity and pride, photographs of all colours, All sizes, subjects: khaki brothers in France; Or mother's faces worn with countless dolours; Or girls whose eyes were challenging and must dance, Though in a picture only, a common cheap Ill-taken card; and children—frozen, some (Babies) waiting on Dicky-bird to peep Out of the handkerchief that is his home (But he's so shy!). And some with bright looks, calling Delight across the miles of land and sea, That not the dread of barrage suddenly falling Could quite blot out—not mud nor lethargy. Smiles and triumphant careless laughter. O The pain of them, wide Earth's most sacred things! Lying in dug-outs, hearing the great shells slow Sailing mile-high, the heart mounts higher and sings. But once—O why did he keep that bitter token Of a dead Love?—that boy, who, suddenly moved, Showed me, his eyes wet, his low talk broken, A girl who better had not been beloved.

One would remember still Meadows and low hill Laventie was, as to the line and elm row Growing through green strength wounded, as home elms grow. Shimmer of summer there and blue autumn mists Seen from trench-ditch winding in mazy twists. The Australian gunners in close flowery hiding Cunning found out at last, and smashed in the unspeakable lists. And the guns in the smashed wood thumping and grinding. The letters written there, and received there, Books, cakes, cigarettes in a parish of famine, And leaks in rainy times with general all-damning. The crater, and carrying of gas cylinders on two sticks (Pain past comparison and far past right agony gone) Strained hopelessly of heart and frame at first fix. Café-au-lait in dug-outs on Tommies' cookers, Cursed minniewerfs, thirst in eighteen-hour summer. The Australian miners clayed, and the being afraid Before strafes, sultry August dusk time than Death dumber — And the cooler hush after the strafe, and the long night wait — The relief of first dawn, the crawling out to look at it, Wonder divine of Dawn, man hesitating before Heaven's gate. (Though not on Coopers where music fire took at it, Though not as at Framilode beauty where body did shake at it) Yet the dawn with aeroplanes crawling high at Heaven's gate Lovely aerial beetles of wonderful scintillate Strangest interest, and puffs of soft purest white — Soaking light, dispersing colouring for fancy's delight. Of Maconachie, Paxton, Tickler, and Gloucester's Stephens; Fray Bentos, Spiller and Baker, odds and evens Of trench food, but the everlasting clean craving For bread, the pure thing, blessed beyond saving. Canteen disappointments, and the keen boy braving Bullets or such for grouse roused surprisingly through (Halfway) Stand-to. And the shell nearly blunted my razor at shaving; Tilleloy, Pauquissart, Neuve Chapelle, and mud like glue. But Laventie, most of all, I think is to soldiers The Town itself with plane trees, and small-spa air; And vin, rouge-blanc, chocolat, citron, grenadine: One might buy in small delectable cafés there. The broken church, and vegetable fields bare; Neat French market town look so clean, And the clarity, amiability of North French air.

She was a village Of lovely knowledge

After the dread tales and red yarns of the Line Anything might have come to us; but the divine