Ivor Gurney, "The Bohemians"

The Bohemians

Certain people would not clean their buttons,
Nor polish buckles after latest fashions,
Preferred their hair long, putties comfortable,
Barely escaping hanging, indeed hardly able;
In Bridge and smoking without army cautions
Spending hours that sped like evil for quickness,
(While others burnished brasses, earned promotions)
These were those ones who jested in the trench,
While others argued of army ways, and wrenched
What little soul they had still further from shape,
And died off one by one, or became officers.
Without the first of dream, the ghost of notions
Of ever becoming soldiers, or smart and neat,
Surprised as ever to find the army capable
Of sounding 'Lights out' to break a game of Bridge,
As to fear candles would set a barn alight:
In Artois or Picardy they lie--free of useless fashions.

--Ivor Gurney

Ivor Gurney, "The Silent One"

The Silent One

Who died on the wires, and hung
there, one of two--
Who for his hours of life had
chattered through
Infinite lovely chatter of Bucks
accent:
Yet faced unbroken wires;
stepped over, and went
A noble fool, faithful to his stripes
--and ended.
But I weak, hungry, and willing
only for the chance
Of line--to fight in the line, lay
down under unbroken
Wires, and saw the flashes and
kept unshaken,
Till the politest voice--a finicking
accent, said:
'Do you think you might crawl
through there: there's a hole.'
Darkness, shot at: I smiled, as
politely replied--
'I'm afraid not, Sir.' There was no
hole no way to be seen
Nothing but chance of death, after
tearing of clothes.
Kept flat, and watched the
darkness, hearing bullets whizzing—-
And thought of music--and
swore deep heart's oaths
(Polite to God) and retreated and
came on again,
Again retreated--a second time
faced the screen.

--Ivor Gurney

Ivor Gurney, "Strange Hells"

Strange Hells

There are strange Hells within the minds War made
Not so often, not so humiliating afraid
As one would have expected - the racket and fear guns made.

One Hell the Gloucester soldiers they quite put out;
Their first bombardment, when in combined black shout
Of fury, guns aligned, they ducked low their heads
And sang with diaphragms fixed beyond all dreads,
That tin and stretched-wire tinkle, that blither of tune;
"Apres la guerre fini" till Hell all had come down,
Twelve-inch, six-inch, and eighteen pounders hammering Hell's thunders.

Where are they now on State-doles, or showing shop patterns
Or walking town to town sore in borrowed tatterns
Or begged. Some civic routine one never learns.
The heart burns - but has to keep out of face how heart burns.

--Ivor Gurney

Ivor Gurney, "Pain"

Pain

Pain, pain continual; pain unending;
Hard even to the roughest, but to those
Hungry for beauty...Not the wisest knows,
Nor most pitiful-hearted, what the wending
Of one hour's way meant. Grey monotony lending
Weight to the grey skies, grey mud where goes
An army of grey bedrenched scarecrows in rows
Careless at last of cruellest Fate-sending.
Seeing the pitiful eyes of men foredone,
Or horses shot, too tired merely to stir,
Dying in shell-holes both, slain by the mud.
Men broken, shrieking even to hear a gun.---
Till pain grinds down, or lethargy numbs her,
The amazed heart cries angrily out on God.

--Ivor Gurney