THE EFFECT

THE EFFECT

"The effect of our bombardment was terrific. One man told me
he had never seen so many dead before."

War Correspondent.

"He'd never seen so many dead before."
They sprawled in yellow daylight while he swore
And gasped and lugged his everlasting load
Of bombs along what once had been a road.
"How peaceful are the dead."
Who put that silly gag in some one's head?

"He'd never seen so many dead before."

The lilting words danced up and down his brain,

While corpses jumped and capered in the rain.

No, no; he wouldn't count them any more….

The dead have done with pain:


They've choked; they can't come back to life again.

When Dick was killed last week he looked like that,

Flapping along the fire-step like a fish,

After the blazing crump had knocked him flat….

"How many dead? As many as ever you wish.

Don't count 'em; they're too many.

Who'll buy my nice fresh corpses, two a penny?"

REMORSE

Lost in the swamp and welter of the pit,

He flounders off the duck-boards; only he knows

Each flash and spouting crash,—each instant lit

When gloom reveals the streaming rain. He goes

Heavily, blindly on. And, while he blunders,

"Could anything be worse than this?"—he wonders,

Remembering how he saw those Germans run,

Screaming for mercy among the stumps of trees:

Green-faced, they dodged and darted: there was one

Livid with terror, clutching at his knees….

Our chaps were sticking 'em like pigs…. "O hell!"

He thought—"there's things in war one dare not tell

Poor father sitting safe at home, who reads

Of dying heroes and their deathless deeds."