Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE BUGLER; A CASE STUDY IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF WAR, by LIN DAVIES


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE BUGLER; A CASE STUDY IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF WAR, by                    
First Line: I can't blow taps no more
Last Line: "and that squares me!"
Subject(s): Bugles; Death; Music & Musicians; Psychology; Soldiers; War; Dead, The; Psychologists


"I can't blow taps no more,"
He says to me.
(They'd kidded him outside the barracks door.)
"I used to do it pretty well before—
Before I played my buddy off. It's war,
But don't you see?

"The moon was full and white,
And shinin' free,
About the way it's shinin' there tonight.
We started up, and Buddy got it right—
A piece of shrap; it dropped him out the fight
Alongside me.

"We laid him in the clay;
And it was me
That sounded taps; there was no other way. ...
I can't blow taps no more ... but say!
I tapped a German skull the other day.
And that squares me!"





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