More songs by the fighting men. Soldiers poets: second series/R. Watson Kerr

R. WATSON KERR

2nd Lieut., Tank Corps

 

Sounds by Night

I HEAR the dull low thunder of the guns
Beyond the hills that doze uneasily,
A sullen doomful growl that ever runs
From end to end of the heavy freighted sky:
A friend of mine writes, squatted on the floor,
And scrapes by yellow spluttering candle light.
"Ah, hush!" he breathes, and gazes at the door,
That creaks on rusty hinge, in pale affright!
(No words spoke he, nor I, for well we knew
What rueful things these sounds did tell.)
A pause—I hear the trees sway sighing thro'
The gloom, like dismal moan of hollow knell,
Then out across the dark, and startling me
Bursts forth a laugh, a shout of drunken glee!

France, 1917.

 

Rain

AH! when it rains all day
And the sky is a mist
That creeps by chillily
Where sun once kissed,
Like death pale shroud,
My soul cries out aloud
In hopeless misery.

I cannot read nor write
A line for gloom,
My life lags, drenched of light
To cheer its tomb;
Chill and wet,
Comfortless I fret
In hopeless night!

And naught to hear but rain
Battering the ground!
O numbing pain!
O maddening sound!
Drowned in sky
Trees drip, drip, and sigh
And drip, drip, again!

France, 1917.

 

The Ancient Thought

THE round moon hangs like a yellow lantern in the trees
That lie like lace against the silk blue sky;
O still the night! O hushed the breeze—
Surely God is very nigh.

 

At the Base

THINK not of me as facing Death,
Tattered, labouring for breath;
Rather think of one who strays
Dreaming dreams by perfumed ways.

Soon I may die, ah, true, 'tis true,
But look! the night is rich with blue
Of peaceful skies, and soft the breeze
Sings in the trembling poplar trees!

And slowly thro' the rustling grass
O'er woodland glade, I, dreaming, pass;
To-morrow? Death? Ah, what are these
But passing childish phantasies!

France, July, 1917.

 

In Bitterness

TAKE Thou this box,
O Heart's Desire,
In it lies Thy ring
And more, my heart, bleeding;
Take out Thy ring,
O Heart's Desire,
And, laughing, toss the box
Into the fire!

France, July, 1917.