58311: A Terre (being the philosophy of many soldiers)
Creators: name: Project Team, First World War Poetry Digital Archive
Publisher: name: University of Oxford
Year: 2024
Subjects: classificationCode: 430304
subject: British history
classificationCode: 430308
subject: European history (excl. British, classical Greek and Roman)
classificationCode: 430316
subject: International history

description: Sit on the bed. I'm blind, and three parts shell.<br> Be careful; can't shake hands now; never shall.<br> Both arms have mutinied against me,---brutes.<br> My fingers fidget like ten idle brats.<br> I tried to peg out soldierly,---no use!<br> One dies of war like any old disease.<br> This bandage feels like pennies on my eyes.<br> I have my medals?---Discs to make eyes close.<br> My glorious ribbons?---Ripped from my own back<br> In scarlet shreds. (That's for your poetry book.)<br> A short life and a merry one, my buck!<br> We used to say we'd hate to live dead-old, ---<br> Yet now ... I'd willingly be puffy, bald,<br> And patriotic. Buffers catch from boys<br> At least the jokes hurled at them. I suppose<br> Little I'd ever teach a son, but hitting,<br> Shooting, war, hunting, all the arts of hurting.<br> Well, that's what I learnt,---that, and making money.<br> Your fifty years ahead seem none too many?<br> Tell me how long I've got? God! For one year<br> To help myself to nothing more than air!<br> One Spring! Is one too good to spare, too long?<br> Spring wind would work its own way to my lung,<br> And grow me legs as quick as lilac-shoots.<br> My servant's lamed, but listen how he shouts!<br> When I'm lugged out, he'll still be good for that.<br> Here in this mummy-case, you know, I've thought<br> How well I might have swept his floors for ever,<br> I'd ask no nights off when the bustle's over,<br> Enjoying so the dirt. Who's prejudiced<br> Against a grimed hand when his own's quite dust,<br> Less live than specks that in the sun-shafts turn,<br> Less warm than dust that mixes with arms' tan?<br> I'd love to be a sweep, now, black as Town,<br> Yes, or a muckman. Must I be his load?<br> O Life, Life, let me breathe,---a dug-out rat!<br> Not worse than ours the lives rats lead ---<br> Nosing along at night down some safe rut,<br> They find a shell-proof home before they rot.<br> Dead men may envy living mites in cheese,<br> Or good germs even. Microbes have their joys,<br> And subdivide, and never come to death.<br> Certainly flowers have the easiest time on earth.<br> 'I shall be one with nature, herb, and stone,'<br> Shelley would tell me. Shelley would be stunned:<br> The dullest Tommy hugs that fancy now.<br> 'Pushing up daisies' is their creed, you know.<br> To grain, then, go my fat, to buds my sap,<br> For all the usefulness there is in soap.<br> D'you think the Boche will ever stew man-soup?<br> Some day, no doubt, if...<br> Friend, be very sure<br> I shall be better off with plants that share<br> More peaceably the meadow and the shower.<br> Soft rains will touch me,---as they could touch once,<br> And nothing but the sun shall make me ware.<br> Your guns may crash around me. I'll not hear;<br> Or, if I wince, I shall not know I wince.<br> Don't take my soul's poor comfort for your jest.<br> Soldiers may grow a soul when turned to fronds,<br> But here the thing's best left at home with friends.<br> My soul's a little grief, grappling your chest,<br> To climb your throat on sobs; easily chased<br> On other sighs and wiped by fresher winds.<br> Carry my crying spirit till it's weaned<br> To do without what blood remained these wounds.