# A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919/Before Ginchy

BEFORE GINCHY
September, 1916
YON poisonous clod, (Look! I could touch it with my stick!) that lies In the next ulcer of this shell-pock'd land To that which holds me now; Yon carrion, with its devil-swarm of flies That scorn the protest of the limp, cold hand, Seeming half-rais'd to shield the matted brow; Those festering rags whose colour mocks the sod; And, O ye gods, those eyes! Those staring, staring eyes!
​How can I gaze unmov'd on sights like these? What hideous enervation bids me sit Here in the shelter of this neighbour pit, Untroubled, unperturbèd, at mine ease, And idly, coldly scan This fearsome relic of what once was man?
Alas! what icy spell hath set The seal upon warm pity? Whence This freezing up of every sense? I think not I lack pitifulness;—I know That my affections were not ever so; My heart is not of stone!—And yet There's something in the feeling of this place, There's something in the breathing of this air,
Which lets me gaze upon that awful face Quite passionless; which lets me meet that stare Most quietly.—Nay, I could touch that hair, And sicken not to feel it coil and cling About my fingers. Did occasion press, Lo! I could spurn it with my foot—that thing Which lies so nigh!— Spurn it light-heartedly and pass it by. So cold, so hard, so seeming pitiless Am I! And yet not I alone;—they know full well, These others, that strange blunting of the heart: They know the workings of that devil's-art, Which drains a man's soul dry, And kills out sensibility!
They know it too, and they can tell That this distemper strange and fell, This hideous blotting of the sense, Creeps on one like a pestilence! It is some deadly Power of ill Which overbears all human will! Some awful influence of the sky, ​Some dreadful power of the place, Wherein we live and breathe and move, Which withers up the roots of Love And dries the very springs of Grace. It is the place!—For, lo, we are in hell. That is the reason why!
And things that curse and writhe and things that die, And earful festering things that rot, —They have their place here. They are not Like unfamiliar portents hurl'd From out some monstrous, alien world. This is their place, their native atmosphere, Their home;—they are in keeping here!
And, being in hell, All we, who breathe this tense, fierce air, —On us too, lies the spell, Something of that soul-deadening blight we share; That even the eye is in a sense, made one With what it looks upon; That even the brain in some strange fashion wrought, Twists its familiar thought To forms and shapes uncouth; And even the heart—the heart that once did feel The surge of tears and pity's warm appeal— Doth quite forget her ancient ruth, Can look on piteous sights unmov'd, As though, forsooth, poor fool! she had never lov'd. ......... They say we change, we men that come out here. But do they know how great that change? And do they know how darkly strange Are those deep tidal waves that roll Within the currents of the soul, Down in the very founts of life, Out here?
​How can they know it?—Mother, sister, wife, Friends, comrades, whoso else is dear, How can they know?—Yet haply, half in fear, Seeing a long-time absent face once more, Something they note which was not there before, —Perchance, a certain habit of the eye, Perchance, an alter'd accent in the speech— Showing he is not what he was of yore. Such little, curious signs they note. Yet each Doth in its little, nameless way Some portion of the truth betray. Such tokens do not lie!
The change is there; the change is true! And so, what wonder if the outward view Do to the eye of Love unroll Some hint of a transformèd soul? —Some hint; for even Love dare peep No further in that troubled deep; And things there be too stern and dark To live in any outward mark; The things that they alone can tell, Like Dante, who have walk'd in hell.
E. Armine Wodehouse