[A. E. Stallings]

Robert and Rhina, thanks for sharing those, neither of which I had read before.

This is a poem I came across in the Library of America's recent American Poetry series. I confess I know little of the poet, Robert Hillyer (beside the biographical note provided therein, which offers his dates as 1895-1961, and the info that he "joined Norton-Harjes Ambulance Service in France, where he served in same unit as Harvard friend John Dos Passos; awarded Verdun Medal by French Government"), and this is the only poem by him in the volume. (Though there are a number of his sonnets available on the Web.) For some reason this really struck and stayed with me:

Dead Man's Corner

Here is the crossroads where the slain
Were piled so deep we could not pass.
Now dreams alone renew the stain
Of blood long soaked into the grass.

If ambulance to save the maimed
Or gunwagon to maim the sound,
Both must proceed, while rightly named
The Mort Homme darkens all the ground.

As long ago wheels took the groove
In necessary roads again,
Crunching the bones that could not move
To move the limbs of living men;

With cracked and beaten lips that taste
Commands like acid but obeyed,
We still with leaden nightmare haste
Convey our shadows through the shade.

War is a most forgotten fear
But peace will not be out of mind.
We drive our ambulances here
God help us! and the road is blind.

[A. E. Stallings]

(I particularly love "Convey our shadows through the shade"...)

[Caleb Murdock]

Such lovely poems. I suppose that they were all published after 1923, so they can't be included on my site. Damn those copyright laws!

[A. E. Stallings]

Peeping in over at Met 1 I ran into Chris's "Arousal on High Street" poem, which put me in mind of the Robert Graves classic on the topic:

Down, Wanton, Down

Down, wanton, down! Have you no shame
That at the whisper of Love's name
Or Beauty's, presto! up you raise
Your angry head and stand at gaze?

Poor bombard-captain, sworn to reach
The ravelin and effect a breach--
Indifferent what you storm or why,
So be that in the breach you die!

Love may be blind, but Love at least
Knows what is man and what mere beast;
Or Beauty wayward, but requires
More delicacy from her squires.

Tell me, my witless, whose one boast
Could be your staunchness at the post,
When were you made a man of parts
To think fine and profess the arts?

Will many-gifted Beauty come
Bowing to your bald rule of thumb,
Or Love swear loyalty to your crown?
Be down, have down! Down, wanton, down!