Dead Man's Cottage
A loft with a ruckle of twisted rafters where the blue sky shows through the splintered tiles,
A shattered floor and a mouldy blanket and little brass cases heaped in piles—
Aloof from the toil and the stench of the trenches, marooned in an island of No Man's Land,
Whipped into waves by the whirl of the shell-fire and foaming with poppies on every hand:
Here is my post now from dawn till darkness, watching alone where my comrades died
With a hermit's meal of meat and of water and Death for companion hard by my side.
Death that I send, and death that seeks me, which is my foe and which is my friend?
Here in the peace of Dead Man's Cottage the difference seems little enough in the end.
Hark! Here it comes with a scream and a shrieking—like ghostly scissors that rend the sky,
Launched ten miles back on a telephone's whisper to seek after those who are next to die.
Foiled! Fallen short! but the earth is shaken with a belch of yellow, a burst of flame,
And the bones of the half-buried dead are riven and tossed abroad in a ghastly game.
Crack! There's my answer—behind that traverse a glimpse of a grey cap barely seen,
An arm upflung, as the bullet reached him, in a clutch at the sandbag's faithless screen.
He is one who was, and I to-morrow may leave the world that I love and know;
When Death the Adventurer calls me to follow, shall I be glad or sorry to go?
(A whirr and a buzzing, muffled, metallic—and sliding afar down the vault of the sky
A plane in a cluster of thistle-head Archies, like the gaunt grey ghost of a dragonfly)
Good Hunting, Brother! The barely breathed whisper just stirs the motes in the sunlight beam,
And the ghosts of the dead in Dead Man's Cottage reply like the half-heard voice of a dream.
Good Hunting! WE followed the trail before you, WE killed once or twice ere we missed our spring,
We who have laid by our arms salute you who still press trigger to serve the King.
Life is the best, for living is serving—be not too eager to hurry away;
Death is not hard, for the dead remember—be not too troubled or eager to stay.
A shattered floor and a mouldy blanket and little brass cases heaped in piles—
Aloof from the toil and the stench of the trenches, marooned in an island of No Man's Land,
Whipped into waves by the whirl of the shell-fire and foaming with poppies on every hand:
Here is my post now from dawn till darkness, watching alone where my comrades died
With a hermit's meal of meat and of water and Death for companion hard by my side.
Death that I send, and death that seeks me, which is my foe and which is my friend?
Here in the peace of Dead Man's Cottage the difference seems little enough in the end.
Hark! Here it comes with a scream and a shrieking—like ghostly scissors that rend the sky,
Launched ten miles back on a telephone's whisper to seek after those who are next to die.
Foiled! Fallen short! but the earth is shaken with a belch of yellow, a burst of flame,
And the bones of the half-buried dead are riven and tossed abroad in a ghastly game.
Crack! There's my answer—behind that traverse a glimpse of a grey cap barely seen,
An arm upflung, as the bullet reached him, in a clutch at the sandbag's faithless screen.
He is one who was, and I to-morrow may leave the world that I love and know;
When Death the Adventurer calls me to follow, shall I be glad or sorry to go?
(A whirr and a buzzing, muffled, metallic—and sliding afar down the vault of the sky
A plane in a cluster of thistle-head Archies, like the gaunt grey ghost of a dragonfly)
Good Hunting, Brother! The barely breathed whisper just stirs the motes in the sunlight beam,
And the ghosts of the dead in Dead Man's Cottage reply like the half-heard voice of a dream.
Good Hunting! WE followed the trail before you, WE killed once or twice ere we missed our spring,
We who have laid by our arms salute you who still press trigger to serve the King.
Life is the best, for living is serving—be not too eager to hurry away;
Death is not hard, for the dead remember—be not too troubled or eager to stay.
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