Rupert John Cornford

Heart of the heartless world,
Dear heart, the thought of you
Is the pain at my side,
The shadow that chills my view.
...

The past, a glacier, gripped the mountain wall,
And time was inches, dark was all.
But here it scales the end of the range,
...

Nothing is ever certain, nothing is ever safe,
To-day is overturning yesterday's settled good.
Everything dying keeps a hungry grip on life.
Nothing is ever born without screaming and blood.
...

This is a quiet sector of a quiet front.

We buried Ruiz in a new pine coffin,
But the shroud was too small and his washed feet stuck out.
The stink of his corpse came through the clean pine boards
...