Counter-Attack and Other Poems | Page 9

he blunders,
"Could anything be worse than
this!"--he wonders,
Remembering how he saw those Germans run,

Screaming for mercy among the stumps of trees:
Green-faced, they
dodged and darted: there was one
Livid with terror, clutching at his
knees...
Our chaps were sticking 'em like pigs... "O hell!"
He
thought--"there's things in war one dare not tell
Poor father sitting
safe at home, who reads
Of dying heroes and their deathless deeds."
DEAD MUSICIANS
I
From you, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart,
The substance of my dreams
took fire.
You built cathedrals in my heart,
And lit my pinnacled
desire.
You were the ardour and the bright
Procession of my
thoughts toward prayer.
You were the wrath of storm, the light
On
distant citadels aflare.
II

Great names, I cannot find you now
In these loud years of youth that
strives
Through doom toward peace: upon my brow
I wear a wreath
of banished lives.
You have no part with lads who fought
And
laughed and suffered at my side.
Your fugues and symphonies have
brought
No memory of my friends who died.
III
For when my brain is on their track,
In slangy speech I call them back.

With fox-trot tunes their ghosts I charm.
_"Another little drink won't do us any harm."
I think of rag-time; a bit
of rag-time;
And see their faces crowding round
To the sound of the
syncopated beat.
They've got such jolly things to tell,
Home from
hell with a Blighty wound so neat..._

And so the song breaks off; and I'm alone.
They're dead... For God's sake stop that gramophone.
THE DREAM
I
Moonlight and dew-drenched blossom, and the scent
Of summer
gardens; these can bring you all
Those dreams that in the starlit
silence fall:
Sweet songs are full of odours.
While I went
Last night in drizzling dusk along a lane,
I passed a
squalid farm; from byre and midden
Came the rank smell that
brought me once again
A dream of war that in the past was hidden.
II
Up a disconsolate straggling village street
I saw the tired troops
trudge: I heard their feet.
The cheery Q.M.S. was there to meet
And

guide our Company in ...
I watched them stumble
Into some crazy hovel, too beat to grumble;

Saw them file inward, slipping from their backs
Rifles, equipment,
packs.
On filthy straw they sit in the gloom, each face
Bowed to
patched, sodden boots they must unlace,
While the wind chills their
sweat through chinks and cracks.
III
I'm looking at their blistered feet; young Jones
Stares up at me,
mud-splashed and white and jaded;
Out of his eyes the morning light
has faded.
Old soldiers with three winters in their bones
Puff their
damp Woodbines, whistle, stretch their toes:
They can still grin at me,
for each of 'em knows
That I'm as tired as they are ...
Can they guess
The secret burden that is always mine?--
Pride in
their courage; pity for their distress;
And burning bitterness
That I
must take them to the accursèd Line.
IV
I cannot hear their voices, but I see
Dim candles in the barn: they
gulp their tea,
And soon they'll sleep like logs. Ten miles away
The
battle winks and thuds in blundering strife.
And I must lead them
nearer, day by day,
To the foul beast of war that bludgeons life.
IN BARRACKS
The barrack-square, washed clean with rain,
Shines wet and
wintry-grey and cold.
Young Fusiliers, strong-legged and bold,

March and wheel and march again.
The sun looks over the barrack
gate,
Warm and white with glaring shine,
To watch the soldiers of
the Line
That life has hired to fight with fate.
Fall out: the long parades are done.
Up comes the dark; down goes

the sun.
The square is walled with windowed light.
Sleep well, you
lusty Fusiliers;
Shut your brave eyes on sense and sight,
And banish
from your dreamless ears
The bugle's lying notes that say,
"Another
night; another day."
TOGETHER
Splashing along the boggy woods all day,
And over brambled hedge
and holding clay,
I shall not think of him:
But when the watery
fields grow brown and dim,
And hounds have lost their fox, and
horses tire,
I know that he'll be with me on my way
Home through
the darkness to the evening fire.
He's jumped each stile along the glistening lanes;
His hand will be
upon the mud-soaked reins;
Hearing the saddle creak,
He'll wonder
if the frost will come next week.
I shall forget him in the morning
light;
And while we gallop on he will not speak:
But at the
stable-door he'll say good-night.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Counter-Attack and Other
Poems by Siegfried Sassoon
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COUNTER-ATTACK AND OTHER POEMS ***
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