Let no one ever, from henceforth say one word in any way countenancing war. It is dangerous even to speak of how here and there the individual may gain some hardship of soul by it. For war is hell, and those who institute it are criminals. Were there even anything to say for it, it should not be said; for its spiritual disasters far outweigh any of its advantages.
Everyone suddenly burst out singing;As prisoned birds must find in freedom.
The visionless officialized fatuityThat once kept Europe safe for Perpetuity.
I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the War is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it.I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this War, on which I entered as a war of defence and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest.
Mute in the clamour of shells he watched them burst And butchered, frantic gestures of the dead.
Lost in a blurred confusion of yells and groans... Bleeding to death. The counter-attack had failed.
Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land, Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows.
Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns beginThey think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives.
If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath, And speed glum heroes up the line of death.
I'd say — "I used to know his father well; I'd toddle safely home and die — in bed.
You smug-faced crowds with kindling eyeThe hell where youth and laughter go.
October's bellowing anger breakes and cleaves The burden of your wrongs is on my head.
Who will remember, passing through this Gate,The armies who endured that sullen swamp.
Here was the world's worst wound. And here with prideRise and deride this sepulchre of crime.
What voice revisits me this night? What faceAnd his life’s work, in me and many, unfinished.
O fathering friend and scientist of good,Your ghost, whom I am powerless to repay.
Deep in my morning time he made his markIn the long campaign to which it had sworn allegiance.