Saturday, November 12, 2016

Bombardment / Richard Aldington


Bombardment

Four days the earth was rent and torn
By bursting steel,
The houses fell about us;
Three nights we dared not sleep,
Sweating, and listening for the imminent crash
Which meant our death.

The fourth night every man,
Nerve-tortured, racked to exhaustion,
Slept, muttering and twitching,
While the shells crashed overhead.

The fifth day there came a hush;
We left our holes
And looked above the wreckage of the earth
To where the white clouds moved in silent lines
Across the untroubled blue.

~~
Richard Aldington (1892-1962)
from Images of War, 1919

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

Richard Aldington biography

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