It Seemed That Out Of Battle I

All A Poet Can Do Today Is Warn.

Courage Was Mine, And I Had Mystery, Wisdom Was Mine, And I Had Mastery: To Miss The March Of This Retreating World Into Vain Citadels That Are Not Walled.

No-man's Land Under Snow Is Like The Face Of The Moon: Chaotic, Crater Ridden, Uninhabitable, Awful, The Abode Of Madness.

The Centuries Will Burn Rich Loads With Which We Groaned, Whose Warmth Shall Lull Their Dreaming Lids, While Songs Are Crooned: But They Will Not Dream Of Us Poor Lads, Left In The Ground.

Futility Move Him Into The Sun - Gently Its Touch Awoke Him Once, At Home, Whispering Of Fields Unsown. Always It Woke Him, Even In France, Until This Morning And This Snow. If Anything Might Rouse Him Now The Kind Old Sun Will Know. Think How It Wakes The Seeds, - Woke, Once, The Clays Of A Cold Star. Are Limbs, So Dear-achieved, Are Sides, Full-nerved -still Warm -too Hard To Stir? Was It For This The Clay Grew Tall? -o What Made Fatuous Sunbeams Toil To Break Earth's Sleep At All?