Heaven Has No Favorites

The Wisest Were Just The Poor And Simple People. They Knew The War To Be A Misfortune, Whereas Those Who Were Better Off, And Should Have Been Able To See More Clearly What The Consequences Would Be, Were Beside Themselves With Joy.

Heaven Has No Favorites

The Storm Lashes Us, Out Of The Confusion Of Grey And Yellow The Hail Of Splinters Whips Forth The Childlike Cries Of The Wounded, And In The Night Shattered Life Groans Painfully Into Silence. Our Hands Are Earth, Our Bodies Clay And Our Eyes Pools Of Rain. We Do Not Know Whether We Are Still Alive.

The Room Shall Speak, It Must Catch Me Up And Hold Me, I Want To Feel That I Belong Here, I Want To Hearken And Know When I Go Back To The Front Line That The War Will Sink Down, Be Drowned Utterly In The Great Home-coming Tide, Know That It Will Then Be Past For Ever, And Not Gnaw Us Continually, That It Will Have None But An Outward Power Over Us...nothing Stirs; Listless And Wretched, Like A Condemned Man, I Sit There And The Past Withdraws Itself. And At The Same Time I Fear To Importune It Too Much, Because I Do Not Know What Might Happen Then. I Am A Soldier, I Must Cling To That.

Monotonously The Lorries Sway, Monotonously Come The Calls, Monotonously Falls The Rain. It Falls On Our Heads And On The Heads Of The Dead Up The Line, On The Body Of The Little Recruit With The Wound That Is So Much Too Big For His Hip; It Falls On Kemmerich's Grave; It Falls In Our Hearts.