A Man Can Gasp Out His Life

For A Moment I Had A Strange Intuition That Just This, And In A Real, Profound Sense, Is Life; And Perhaps Happiness Even - Love With A Mixture Of Sadness, Reverence, And Silent Knowledge.

We Are Not Youth Any Longer. We Don’t Want To Take The World By Storm. We Are Fleeing. We Fly From Ourselves. From Our Life. We Were Eighteen And Had Begun To Love Life And The World; And We Had To Shoot It To Pieces.

It Is Just As Much A Matter Of Chance That I Am Still Alive As That I Might Have Been Hit. In A Bomb-proof Dug-out I May Be Smashed To Atoms And In The Open May Survive Ten Hour's Bombardment Unscratched. No Soldier Outlives A Thousand Chances. But Every Soldier Believes In Chance And Trusts His Luck.

The Days, The Weeks, The Years Out Here Shall Come Back Again, And Our Dead Comrades Shall Then Stand Up Again And March With Us, Our Heads Shall Be Clear, We Shall Have A Purpose, And So We Shall March, Our Dead Comrades Beside Us, The Years At The Front Behind Us:—against Whom, Against Whom?

At School Nobody Ever Taught Us How To Light A Cigarette In A Storm Of Rain, Nor How A Fire Could Be Made With Wet Wood-nor That It Is Best To Stick A Bayonet In The Belly Because There It Doesn't Get Jammed, As It Does In The Ribs.