Poems (Kennedy)/No Man's Land
For works with similar titles, see No Man's Land.
"NO MAN'S LAND"
BETWEEN the hostile trenches where The fight rocks to and fro—A narrow strip where frenzied hosts No quarter give or know It lies—this rendezvous of death Called "No Man's Land."
The men drop in their own red blood Beyond their comrades' reach,Or dead, or torn with shot and shell In agony that passes speech And shames the savage age of old, In "No Man's Land."
Back in the trenches strong men rave To hear the helpless cries,But none may venture forth to save E'en when a brother dies Upon that awful slaughter-sod Of "No Man's Land."
The wounded, mid the stench of death, Shriek out their curse or prayer,And writhe and thirst and curse and die And rot in wind-rows there, For barbarism is the creed Of "No Man's Land."
They call it well, for human heart No rood of it would claim,The devils of inferno hold The fief in blood and shame, And hell is but another name For "No Man's Land."