Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SENTRY'S MISTAKE, by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SENTRY'S MISTAKE, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: The chapel at the crossways bore no scar
Last Line: "made him once more ""the terror of the hun."
Alternate Author Name(s): Blunden, Edmund
Subject(s): World War I; First World War


THE chapel at the crossways bore no scar,
Nor near had whining covey of shells yet pounced,
The calm saints in the chapel knew no war,
No meaning there the horizon's roars announced;
We halted, and were glad; the country lay
After our marching like a sabbath day.

Round the still quadrangle of the great farm
The company soon had settled their new home;
The cherry-boughs were beckoning every arm,
The stream ran wrinkling by with playful foam,
And when the guard was at the gateway set,
Surrounding pastoral sweetly stole their wit.

So out upon the road, gamekeeper-like,
The cowman now turned warrior measured out
His up-and-down sans cursed bundook and spike,
Under his arm a cudgel brown and stout;
An air of comfort and kind ownership,
A philosophic smile upon his lip.

For it seemed sin to soil the harmonious air
With the parade of weapons built to kill.
But now a flagged car came ill-omened there.
The crimson-mottled monarch, shocked and shrill,
Sent our poor sentry scampering for his gun,
Made him once more "the terror of the Hun."





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