The Things Men Did Or Felt They

How Senseless Is Everything That Can Ever Be Written, Done, Or Thought, When Such Things Are Possible. It Must Be All Lies And Of No Account When The Culture Of A Thousand Years Could Not Prevent This Stream Of Blood Being Poured Out, These Torture-chambers In Their Hundreds Of Thousands. A Hospital Alone Shows What War Is.

He Fell In October 1918, On A Day That Was So Quiet And Still On The Whole Front, That The Army Report Confined Itself To The Single Sentence: All Quiet On The Western Front. He Had Fallen Forward And Lay On The Earth As Though Sleeping. Turning Him Over One Saw That He Could Not Have Suffered Long; His Face Had An Expression Of Calm, As Though Almost Glad The End Had Come.

We Want To Live At Any Price; So We Cannot Burden Ourselves With Feelings Which, Though They Might Be Ornamental Enough In Peace-time, Would Be Out Of Place Here.

I Want That Quiet Rapture Again. I Want To Feel The Same Powerful, Nameless Urge That I Used To Feel When I Turned To My Books. The Breath Of Desire That Then Arose From The Coloured Backs Of The Books, Shall Fill Me Again, Melt The Heavy, Dead Lump Of Lead That Lies Somewhere In Me And Waken Again The Impatience Of The Future, The Quick Joy In The World Of Thought, It Shall Bring Back Again The Lost Eagerness Of My Youth. I Sit And Wait.

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?