FAR up at Glorian the wind is sighing.
And, as the light grows less,
Across the downland sounds the plovers' crying,
The voice of loneliness.
Thither, from this sad waste of waters streaming,
All the unending night,
My heart returns, to see by Kennet gleaming
One cottage window-light.
Yet for your sake it is that I must roam now,
Dear lands, dear lads I know;
I love you so, I could not stay at home now,
Nor pay the debt I owe.
TIS midnight, and above the hollow trench,
Seen through a gaunt wood's battle-blasted trunks
And the stark rafters of a shattered grange,
The quiet sky hangs huge and thick with stars.
And through the vast gloom, murdering its peace,
Guns bellow and their shells rush swishing ere
They burst in death and thunder, or they fling
Wild jangling spirals round the screaming air.
Bullets whine by, and Maxims drub like drums,
And through the heaped confusion of all sounds
One great gun drives its single vibrant "Broum,"
And scarce five score of paces from the wall
Of piled sandbags and barb-toothed nets of wire,
(So near and yet what thousand leagues away!)
- ↑ Written in fire trench above "Glencorse Wood," Westhoeck, April 11, 1915.