Patriotic Poems

Part One


The power of charity sows deep in my heart, and I reap and gather the wheat in bundles and give them to the hungry.
...

(Being the philosophy of many Soldiers.)


Sit on the bed; I'm blind, and three parts shell,
...

Sit on the bed. I'm blind, and three parts shell.
Be careful; can't shake hands now; never shall.
Both arms have mutinied against me,-brutes.
My fingers fidget like ten idle brats.
...

What sort of arrow split the sky and this rock?
It's quivering, spreading like a peacock's fan
Like the mist around the shaft and knot less feathers
Of a comet come to nest at midnight.
...

Inscribed to Robert Aiken, Esq.

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys and destiny obscure;
...

To Ianthe:

Not in those climes where I have late been straying,
Though Beauty long hath there been matchless deem'd;
...

No, Bill, I'm not a-spooning out no patriotic tosh
(The cove be'ind the sandbags ain't a death-or-glory cuss).
And though I strafes 'em good and 'ard I doesn't 'ate the Boche,
I guess they're mostly decent, just the same as most of us.
...

I found him in the guard-room at the Base.
From the blind darkness I had heard his crying
And blundered in. With puzzled, patient face
A sergeant watched him; it was no good trying
...

Oh! how I love, on a fair summer's eve,
When streams of light pour down the golden west,
And on the balmy zephyrs tranquil rest
The silver clouds, far -- far away to leave
...

What is death, I ask.
What is life, you ask.
I give them both my buttocks,
...

O this political air so heavy with the bells
and motors of a slow night, and no place to rest
...

Inscribed to Robert Aiken, Esq.

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys and destiny obscure;
...