SALLOWS like heads in Polynesia, With few and blood-stuck hairs, Mud-layered cobble-stones, Soldiers in smoky sheds, blackening uniforms and walls with their cookery; Shell-holes in roofs, in roads, Even in advertisements Of bicycles and beer; The Middle Ages gone to sleep, and woken up to this -- A salvo, four flat slamming explosions. When you come out the wrong side of the ruin, you are facing Hill Sixty, Hill Sixty is facing you. You have been planted on the rim of a volcano, Which will bring forth its fruit -- at any second. Better to be shielded from these facts; There is a cellar, or was just now. If the wreck isn't knocked in on us all, We may emerge past the two Belgian policemen, The owners' representatives, Standing in their capes on the steps of the hollow estaminet Open at all hours to all the winds At the Poperinghe end of Ypres. O if we do, if time will pass in time, We will march With rifles butt-upwards, in our teeth, any way you like, Into seven days of country where you come out any door. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE LITTLE BLACK-EYED REBEL by WILLIAM MCKENDREE CARLETON QUATRAIN: OMAR KHAYYAM (AFTER FITZGERALD) by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH FIVE LITTLE WANDERINGS: 4. MANHOOD by BERTON BRALEY FAREWELL TO A LOVER by VERA MARY BRITTAIN A PLEA FOR FLOOD IRESON by CHARLES TIMOTHY BROOKS |