To my Brother by Vera Brittain
 |
| Vera Brittain |
In your battle-wounds are scars upon my heart,
Received when in the grand and tragic "show"
You played your part
Two years ago,
And silver in the summer morning sun
I see the symbol of your courage glow -
that Cross you won
Two years ago.
Though now again you watch the shrapnel fly,
and hear the guns that day louder grow,
As in July
Two years ago.
May you endure to lead the Last Advance
And with your men pursue the flying foe
As once in France
Two years ago.
'This item is from The First World War Poetry Digital Archive, University of Oxford (www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit); © [Copyright notice]'.
Mary Gilmore "War"
An Australian poet also wrote of her brother's death. |
| Mary Gilmore, "War", in Under the Wilgas, Robertson and Mullens, Melbourne, 1932, pp. 102-103 |
Out in the dust he lies;
Flies in his mouth,
Ants in his eyes ...
I stood at the door
Where he went out;
Full-grown man,
Ruddy and stout;
I heard the march
Of the trampling feet,
Slow and steady
Come down the street;
The beat of the drum
Was clods on the heart,
For all that the regiment
Looked so smart!
I heard the crackle
Of hasty cheers
Run like the breaking
Of unshed tears,
And just for a moment,
As he went by,
I had sight of his face,
And the flash of his eye.
He died a hero's death,
They said,
When they came to tell me
My boy was dead;
But out in the street
A dead dog lies;
Flies in his mouth,
Ants in his eyes.
Dulce et Decorum Est
by Wilfred Owen |
| KIA Nov 4, 1918. |
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
