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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
YPRES 1919, by EDWIN BARLOW EVANS
First Line: These fields of bleak white crosses sear my eyes
Last Line: And man, like gulliver, still eats the ground.
Subject(s): Death; Sonnet (as Literary Form); War; Dead, The
First Line: These fields of bleak white crosses sear my eyes
Last Line: And man, like gulliver, still eats the ground.
Subject(s): Death; Sonnet (as Literary Form); War; Dead, The
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 you 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.
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