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

"Bombardment" read by Seán Mac G.

The Faun Sees Snow for the First Time / Richard Aldington

The Faun Sees Snow for the First Time

Zeus,
Brazen-thunder-hurler,
Cloud-whirler, son-of-Kronos,
Send vengeance on these Oreads
Who strew
White frozen flecks of mist and cloud
Over the brown trees and the tufted grass
Of the meadows, where the stream
Runs black through shining banks
Of bluish white.

Zeus,
Are the halls of heaven broken up
That you flake down upon me
Feather-strips of marble?

Dis and Styx!
When I stamp my hoof
The frozen-cloud-specks jam into the cleft
So that I reel upon two slippery points....

Fool, to stand here cursing
When I might be running!

~~
Richard Aldington (1892-1962)
from Images Old and New, 1916

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

Richard Aldington biography

June Rain / Richard Aldington

June Rain

Hot, a griffin's mouth of flame,
The sun rasped with his golden tongue
The city streets, till men and walls shrivelled;
The dusty air stagnated.

At the third noon a wind rippled,
A wide sea silently breaking;
A thick veil of rain-drops
Hid the sun and the hard blue.

A grey garment of rain,
Cold as hoar frost in April,
Enwrapped us.

~~
Richard Aldington (1892-1962)
from Images: Old and new, 1916

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

Richard Aldington biography