These fields of bleak white crosses sear my eyes, These rancid shell-holes reeking with green scum Exude a stench that makes me sick and numb, These filthy dugouts stink like Satan's sties, Befouled with sin's demoniacal cries; While violets in spring delirium Peep through a skull's eye-socket, stark and dumb, And over all gleam gorgeous butterflies. And so these bigwigs, armament war-gods Declared with unction @3you@1 must do your bit To make democracy quite safe and sound With your dear life, as cheap as dust and clods You paid -- and yet world peace groans in the pit And man, like Gulliver, still eats the ground. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...OVERHEARD ON A SALTMARSH by HAROLD MONRO THE HIGHER PANTHEISM by ALFRED TENNYSON THE ROSES ON THE TERRACE by ALFRED TENNYSON LET ALL THE EARTH KEEP SILENCE by LUCY A. K. ADEE DANS LA BOHEME by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH THREE THINGS by JOSEPH AUSLANDER THE ARCHERY MEETING by THOMAS HAYNES BAYLY |