1914, II. Safety / Rupert Brooke

       
II. Safety

Dear! of all happy in the hour, most blest
      He who has found our hid security,
Assured in the dark tides of the world that rest,
      And heard our word, 'Who is so safe as we?'
We have found safety with all things undying,
      The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth,
The deep night, and birds singing, and clouds flying,
      And sleep, and freedom, and the autumnal earth.
We have built a house that is not for Time's throwing.
      We have gained a peace unshaken by pain for ever.
War knows no power. Safe shall be my going,
      Secretly armed against all death's endeavour;
Safe though all safety's lost; safe where men fall;
And if these poor limbs die, safest of all.

~~
Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)
1914

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

Rupert Brooke biography

"Safety" read by Jonathan Jones. Courtesy GreatWarVerse.

1914, III. The Dead / Rupert Brooke

   
III. The Dead

Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead!
      There's none of these so lonely and poor of old,
      But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold.
These laid the world away; poured out the red
Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be
      Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene,
      That men call age; and those who would have been,
Their sons, they gave, their immortality.

Blow, bugles, blow! They brought us for our dearth,
      Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain.
Honour has come back, as a king, to earth,
      And paid his subjects with a royal wage;
And Nobleness walks in our ways again;
      And we have come into our heritage.

~~
Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)
1914

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

Rupert Brooke biography

"The Dead" read by Jonathan Jones. Courtesy GreatWarVerse.

1914, IV. The Dead / Rupert Brooke

       
IV. The Dead

These hearts were woven of human joys and cares,
      Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth.
The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs,
      And sunset, and the colours of the earth.
These had seen movement, and heard music; known
      Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended;
Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone;
      Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended.

There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter
And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after,
      Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance
And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white
      Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance,
A width, a shining peace, under the night.

~~
Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)
1914

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

Rupert Brooke biography

"The Dead" read by Sir John Gielgud. Courtesy Roman Styran.

1914, V. The Soldier / Rupert Brooke

       
V. The Soldier

If I should die, think only this of me:
      That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
       In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
       Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
       Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
       A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
       Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
       In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

~~
Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)
1914

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

Rupert Brooke biography

"The Soldier" read by David Barnes for LibriVox. Courtesy WW! Photos.

Break of Day in the Trenches / Isaac Rosenberg

       
Break of Day in the Trenches

The darkness crumbles away.
It is the same old druid Time as ever,
Only a live thing leaps my hand,
A queer sardonic rat,
As I pull the parapet's poppy
To stick behind my ear.
Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew
Your cosmopolitan sympathies.
Now you have touched this English hand
You will do the same to a German
Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure
To cross the sleeping green between.
It seems you inwardly grin as you pass
Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes,
Less chanced than you for life,
Bonds to the whims of murder,
Sprawled in the bowels of the earth,
The torn fields of France.
What do you see in our eyes
At the shrieking iron and flame
Hurled through still heavens?
What quaver – what heart aghast?
Poppies whose roots are in man's veins
Drop, and are ever dropping;
But mine in my ear is safe —
Just a little white with the dust.

~~
Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918), 1916
from Poems, 1922

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

Isaac Rosenberg biography

"Break of Day in the Trenches" read by Joe Murgatroyd. Courtesy The War Poetry Society.

S.I.W. / Wilfred Owen

   
S.I.W.

                    I will to the King,
                    And offer him consolation in his trouble,
                    For that man there has set his teeth to die,
                    And being one that hates obedience,
                    Discipline, and orderliness of life,
                    I cannot mourn him.

                                  - W.B. Yeats

I. The Prologue

Patting good-bye, doubtless they told the lad
He'd always show the Hun a brave man's face;
Father would sooner him dead than in disgrace,—
Was proud to see him going, aye, and glad.
Perhaps his mother whimpered how she'd fret
Until he got a nice safe wound to nurse.
Sisters would wish girls too could shoot, charge, curse...
Brothers — would send his favourite cigarette.
Each week, month after month, they wrote the same,
Thinking him sheltered in some Y.M. Hut,
Because he said so, writing on his butt
Where once an hour a bullet missed its aim
And misses teased the hunger of his brain.
His eyes grew old with wincing, and his hand
Reckless with ague. Courage leaked, as sand
From the best sand-bags after years of rain.
But never leave, wound, fever, trench-foot, shock,
Untrapped the wretch. And death seemed still withheld
For torture of lying machinally shelled,
At the pleasure of this world's Powers who'd run amok.

He'd seen men shoot their hands, on night patrol.
Their people never knew. Yet they were vile.
'Death sooner than dishonour, that's the style!'
So Father said.

II. The Action

                                   One dawn, our wire patrol
Carried him. This time, Death had not missed.
We could do nothing but wipe his bleeding cough.
Could it be accident? — Rifles go off...
Not sniped? No. (Later they found the English ball.)

III. The Poem

It was the reasoned crisis of his soul
Against more days of inescapable thrall,
Against infrangibly wired and blind trench wall
Curtained with fire, roofed in with creeping fire,
Slow grazing fire, that would not burn him whole
But kept him for death's promises and scoff,
And life's half-promising, and both their riling.

IV. The Epilogue

With him they buried the muzzle his teeth had kissed,
And truthfully wrote the Mother, 'Tim died smiling'

---
Wilfred Owen (1893-1918), 1917
from Poems, 1920

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

"S.I.W" read by Jim Clark. Courtesy poetryreincarnations.

Wilfred Owen biography

War is Kind / Stephen Crane

I

Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind.
Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky
And the affrighted steed ran on alone,
Do not weep.
War is kind.

Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment,
Little souls who thirst for fight,
These men were born to drill and die.
The unexplained glory flies above them,
Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom —
A field where a thousand corpses lie.

Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.
Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches,
Raged at his breast, gulped and died,
Do not weep.
War is kind.

Swift blazing flag of the regiment,
Eagle with crest of red and gold,
These men were born to drill and die.
Point for them the virtue of slaughter,
Make plain to them the excellence of killing
And a field where a thousand corpses lie.

Mother whose heart hung humble as a button
On the bright splendid shroud of your son,
Do not weep.
War is kind.

~~
Stephen Crane (1871-1900)
from War is Kind, and other lines, 1899

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Stephen Crane biography

"War is Kind" read by Tom O'Bedlam. Courtesy Morphing Reality.