poetry

Cold eyelids that hide like a jewel
      Hard eyes that grow soft for an hour;
The heavy white limbs, and the cruel
      Red mouth like a venomous flower;
When these are gone by with their glories,
      What shall rest of thee then, what remain,
O mystic and sombre Dolores,
      Our Lady of Pain?

Seven sorrows the priests give their Virgin;
      But thy sins, which are seventy times seven,
Seven ages would fail thee to purge in,
      And then they would haunt thee in heaven:
Fierce midnights and famishing morrows,
      And the loves that complete and control
All the joys of the flesh, all the sorrows
      That wear out the soul.

O garment not golden but gilded,
      O garden where all men may dwell,
O tower not of ivory, but builded
      By hands that reach heaven from hell;
O mystical rose of the mire,
      O house not of gold but of gain,
O house of unquenchable fire,
      Our Lady of Pain!

O lips full of lust and of laughter,
      Curled snakes that are fed from my breast,
Bite hard, lest remembrance come after
      And press with new lips where you pressed.
For my heart too springs up at the pressure,
      Mine eyelids too moisten and burn;
Ah, feed me and fill me with pleasure,
      Ere pain come in turn.

In yesterday's reach and to-morrow's,
      Out of sight though they lie of to-day,
There have been and there yet shall be sorrows
      That smite not and bite not in play.
The life and the love thou despisest,
      These hurt us indeed, and in vain,
O wise among women, and wisest,
      Our Lady of Pain.

Who gave thee thy wisdom? what stories
      That stung thee, what visions that smote?
Wert thou pure and a maiden, Dolores,
      When desire took thee first by the throat?
What bud was the shell of a blossom
      That all men may smell to and pluck?
What milk fed thee first at what bosom?
      What sins gave thee suck?

We shift and bedeck and bedrape us,
      Thou art noble and nude and antique;
Libitina thy mother, Priapus
      Thy father, a Tuscan and Greek.
We play with light loves in the portal,
      And wince and relent and refrain;
Loves die, and we know thee immortal,
      Our Lady of Pain.

Fruits fail and love dies and time ranges;
      Thou art fed with perpetual breath,
And alive after infinite changes,
      And fresh from the kisses of death;
Of languors rekindled and rallied,
      Of barren delights and unclean,
Things monstrous and fruitless, a pallid
      And poisonous queen.

Could you hurt me, sweet lips, though I hurt you?
      Men touch them, and change in a trice
The lilies and languors of virtue
      For the raptures and roses of vice;
Those lie where thy foot on the floor is,
      These crown and caress thee and chain,
O splendid and sterile Dolores,
      Our Lady of Pain.

There are sins it may be to discover,
      There are deeds it may be to delight.
What new work wilt thou find for thy lover,
      What new passions for daytime or night?
What spells that they know not a word of
      Whose lives are as leaves overblown?
What tortures undreamt of, unheard of,
      Unwritten, unknown?

Ah beautiful passionate body
      That never has ached with a heart!
On thy mouth though the kisses are bloody,
      Though they sting till it shudder and smart,
More kind than the love we adore is,
      They hurt not the heart or the brain,
O bitter and tender Dolores,
      Our Lady of Pain.

As our kisses relax and redouble,
      From the lips and the foam and the fangs
Shall no new sin be born for men's trouble,
      No dream of impossible pangs?
With the sweet of the sins of old ages
      Wilt thou satiate thy soul as of yore?
Too sweet is the rind, say the sages,
      Too bitter the core.

Hast thou told all thy secrets the last time,
      And bared all thy beauties to one?
Ah, where shall we go then for pastime,
      If the worst that can be has been done?
But sweet as the rind was the core is;
      We are fain of thee still, we are fain,
O sanguine and subtle Dolores,
      Our Lady of Pain.

By the hunger of change and emotion,
      By the thirst of unbearable things,
By despair, the twin-born of devotion,
      By the pleasure that winces and stings,
The delight that consumes the desire,
      The desire that outruns the delight,
By the cruelty deaf as a fire
      And blind as the night,

By the ravenous teeth that have smitten
      Through the kisses that blossom and bud,
By the lips intertwisted and bitten
      Till the foam has a savour of blood,
By the pulse as it rises and falters,
      By the hands as they slacken and strain,
I adjure thee, respond from thine altars,
      Our Lady of Pain.

Wilt thou smile as a woman disdaining
      The light fire in the veins of a boy?
But he comes to thee sad, without feigning,
      Who has wearied of sorrow and joy;
Less careful of labour and glory
      Than the elders whose hair has uncurled:
And young, but with fancies as hoary
      And grey as the world.

I have passed from the outermost portal
      To the shrine where a sin is a prayer;
What care though the service be mortal?
      O our Lady of Torture, what care?
All thine the last wine that I pour is,
      The last in the chalice we drain,
O fierce and luxurious Dolores,
      Our Lady of Pain.

All thine the new wine of desire,
      The fruit of four lips as they clung
Till the hair and the eyelids took fire,
      The foam of a serpentine tongue,
The froth of the serpents of pleasure,
      More salt than the foam of the sea,
Now felt as a flame, now at leisure
      As wine shed for me.

Ah thy people, thy children, thy chosen,
      Marked cross from the womb and perverse!
They have found out the secret to cozen
      The gods that constrain us and curse;
They alone, they are wise, and none other;
      Give me place, even me, in their train,
O my sister, my spouse, and my mother,
      Our Lady of Pain.

For the crown of our life as it closes
      Is darkness, the fruit thereof dust;
No thorns go as deep as a rose's,
      And love is more cruel than lust.
Time turns the old days to derision,
      Our loves into corpses or wives;
And marriage and death and division
      Make barren our lives.

And pale from the past we draw nigh thee,
      And satiate with comfortless hours;
And we know thee, how all men belie thee,
      And we gather the fruit of thy flowers;
The passion that slays and recovers,
      The pangs and the kisses that rain
On the lips and the limbs of thy lovers,
      Our Lady of Pain.

The desire of thy furious embraces
      Is more than the wisdom of years,
On the blossom though blood lie in traces,
      Though the foliage be sodden with tears.
For the lords in whose keeping the door is
      That opens on all who draw breath
Gave the cypress to love, my Dolores,
      The myrtle to death.

And they laughed, changing hands in the measure,
      And they mixed and made peace after strife;
Pain melted in tears, and was pleasure;
      Death tingled with blood, and was life.
Like lovers they melted and tingled,
      In the dusk of thine innermost fane;
In the darkness they murmured and mingled,
      Our Lady of Pain.

In a twilight where virtues are vices,
      In thy chapels, unknown of the sun,
To a tune that enthralls and entices,
      They were wed, and the twain were as one.
For the tune from thine altar hath sounded
      Since God bade the world's work begin,
And the fume of thine incense abounded,
      To sweeten the sin.

Love listens, and paler than ashes,
      Through his curls as the crown on them slips,
Lifts languid wet eyelids and lashes,
      And laughs with insatiable lips.
Thou shalt hush him with heavy caresses,
      With music that scares the profane;
Thou shalt darken his eyes with thy tresses,
      Our Lady of Pain.

Thou shalt blind his bright eyes though he wrestle,
      Thou shalt chain his light limbs though he strive;
In his lips all thy serpents shall nestle,
      In his hands all thy cruelties thrive.
In the daytime thy voice shall go through him,
      In his dreams he shall feel thee and ache;
Thou shalt kindle by night and subdue him
      Asleep and awake.

Thou shalt touch and make redder his roses
      With juice not of fruit nor of bud;
When the sense in the spirit reposes,
      Thou shalt quicken the soul through the blood.
Thine, thine the one grace we implore is,
      Who would live and not languish or feign,
O sleepless and deadly Dolores,
      Our Lady of Pain.

Dost thou dream, in a respite of slumber,
      In a lull of the fires of thy life,
Of the days without name, without number,
      When thy will stung the world into strife;
When, a goddess, the pulse of thy passion
      Smote kings as they revelled in Rome;
And they hailed thee re-risen, O Thalassian,
      Foam-white, from the foam?

When thy lips had such lovers to flatter;
      When the city lay red from thy rods,
And thine hands were as arrows to scatter
      The children of change and their gods;
When the blood of thy foemen made fervent
      A sand never moist from the main,
As one smote them, their lord and thy servant,
      Our Lady of Pain.

On sands by the storm never shaken,
      Nor wet from the washing of tides;
Nor by foam of the waves overtaken,
      Nor winds that the thunder bestrides;
But red from the print of thy paces,
      Made smooth for the world and its lords,
Ringed round with a flame of fair faces,
      And splendid with swords.

There the gladiator, pale for thy pleasure,
      Drew bitter and perilous breath;
There torments laid hold on the treasure
      Of limbs too delicious for death;
When thy gardens were lit with live torches;
      When the world was a steed for thy rein;
When the nations lay prone in thy porches,
      Our Lady of Pain.

When, with flame all around him aspirant,
      Stood flushed, as a harp-player stands,
The implacable beautiful tyrant,
      Rose-crowned, having death in his hands;
And a sound as the sound of loud water
      Smote far through the flight of the fires,
And mixed with the lightning of slaughter
      A thunder of lyres.

Dost thou dream of what was and no more is,
      The old kingdoms of earth and the kings?
Dost thou hunger for these things, Dolores,
      For these, in a world of new things?
But thy bosom no fasts could emaciate,
      No hunger compel to complain
Those lips that no bloodshed could satiate,
      Our Lady of Pain.

As of old when the world's heart was lighter,
      Through thy garments the grace of thee glows,
The white wealth of thy body made whiter
      By the blushes of amorous blows,
And seamed with sharp lips and fierce fingers,
      And branded by kisses that bruise;
When all shall be gone that now lingers,
      Ah, what shall we lose?

Thou wert fair in the fearless old fashion,
      And thy limbs are as melodies yet,
And move to the music of passion
      With lithe and lascivious regret.
What ailed us, O gods, to desert you
      For creeds that refuse and restrain?
Come down and redeem us from virtue,
      Our Lady of Pain.

All shrines that were Vestal are flameless,
      But the flame has not fallen from this;
Though obscure be the god, and though nameless
      The eyes and the hair that we kiss;
Low fires that love sits by and forges
      Fresh heads for his arrows and thine;
Hair loosened and soiled in mid orgies
      With kisses and wine.

Thy skin changes country and colour,
      And shrivels or swells to a snake's.
Let it brighten and bloat and grow duller,
      We know it, the flames and the flakes,
Red brands on it smitten and bitten,
      Round skies where a star is a stain,
And the leaves with thy litanies written,
      Our Lady of Pain.

On thy bosom though many a kiss be,
      There are none such as knew it of old.
Was it Alciphron once or Arisbe,
      Male ringlets or feminine gold,
That thy lips met with under the statue,
      Whence a look shot out sharp after thieves
From the eyes of the garden-god at you
      Across the fig-leaves?

Then still, through dry seasons and moister,
      One god had a wreath to his shrine;
Then love was the pearl of his oyster,
      And Venus rose red out of wine.
We have all done amiss, choosing rather
      Such loves as the wise gods disdain;
Intercede for us thou with thy father,
      Our Lady of Pain.

In spring he had crowns of his garden,
      Red corn in the heat of the year,
Then hoary green olives that harden
      When the grape-blossom freezes with fear;
And milk-budded myrtles with Venus
      And vine-leaves with Bacchus he trod;
And ye said, "We have seen, he hath seen us,
      A visible God."

What broke off the garlands that girt you?
      What sundered you spirit and clay?
Weak sins yet alive are as virtue
      To the strength of the sins of that day.
For dried is the blood of thy lover,
      Ipsithilla, contracted the vein;
Cry aloud, "Will he rise and recover,
      Our Lady of Pain?"

Cry aloud; for the old world is broken:
      Cry out; for the Phrygian is priest,
And rears not the bountiful token
      And spreads not the fatherly feast.
From the midmost of Ida, from shady
      Recesses that murmur at morn,
They have brought and baptized her, Our Lady,
      A goddess new-born.

And the chaplets of old are above us,
      And the oyster-bed teems out of reach;
Old poets outsing and outlove us,
      And Catullus makes mouths at our speech.
Who shall kiss, in thy father's own city,
      With such lips as he sang with, again?
Intercede for us all of thy pity,
      Our Lady of Pain.

Out of Dindymus heavily laden
      Her lions draw bound and unfed
A mother, a mortal, a maiden,
      A queen over death and the dead.
She is cold, and her habit is lowly,
      Her temple of branches and sods;
Most fruitful and virginal, holy,
      A mother of gods.

She hath wasted with fire thine high places,
      She hath hidden and marred and made sad
The fair limbs of the Loves, the fair faces
      Of gods that were goodly and glad.
She slays, and her hands are not bloody;
      She moves as a moon in the wane,
White-robed, and thy raiment is ruddy,
      Our Lady of Pain.

They shall pass and their places be taken,
      The gods and the priests that are pure.
They shall pass, and shalt thou not be shaken?
      They shall perish, and shalt thou endure?
Death laughs, breathing close and relentless
      In the nostrils and eyelids of lust,
With a pinch in his fingers of scentless
      And delicate dust.

But the worm shall revive thee with kisses;
      Thou shalt change and transmute as a god,
As the rod to a serpent that hisses,
      As the serpent again to a rod.
Thy life shall not cease though thou doff it;
      Thou shalt live until evil be slain,
And good shall die first, said thy prophet,
      Our Lady of Pain.

Did he lie? did he laugh? does he know it,
      Now he lies out of reach, out of breath,
Thy prophet, thy preacher, thy poet,
      Sin's child by incestuous Death?
Did he find out in fire at his waking,
      Or discern as his eyelids lost light,
When the bands of the body were breaking
      And all came in sight?

Who has known all the evil before us,
      Or the tyrannous secrets of time?
Though we match not the dead men that bore us
      At a song, at a kiss, at a crime —
Though the heathen outface and outlive us,
      And our lives and our longings are twain —
Ah, forgive us our virtues, forgive us,
      Our Lady of Pain.

Who are we that embalm and embrace thee
      With spices and savours of song?
What is time, that his children should face thee?
      What am I, that my lips do thee wrong?
I could hurt thee — but pain would delight thee;
      Or caress thee — but love would repel;
And the lovers whose lips would excite thee
      Are serpents in hell.

Who now shall content thee as they did,
      Thy lovers, when temples were built
And the hair of the sacrifice braided
      And the blood of the sacrifice spilt,
In Lampsacus fervent with faces,
      In Aphaca red from thy reign,
Who embraced thee with awful embraces,
      Our Lady of Pain?

Where are they, Cotytto or Venus,
      Astarte or Ashtaroth, where?
Do their hands as we touch come between us?
      Is the breath of them hot in thy hair?
From their lips have thy lips taken fever,
      With the blood of their bodies grown red?
Hast thou left upon earth a believer
      If these men are dead?

They were purple of raiment and golden,
      Filled full of thee, fiery with wine,
Thy lovers, in haunts unbeholden,
      In marvellous chambers of thine.
They are fled, and their footprints escape us,
      Who appraise thee, adore, and abstain,
O daughter of Death and Priapus,
      Our Lady of Pain.

What ails us to fear overmeasure,
      To praise thee with timorous breath,
O mistress and mother of pleasure,
      The one thing as certain as death?
We shall change as the things that we cherish,
      Shall fade as they faded before,
As foam upon water shall perish,
      As sand upon shore.

We shall know what the darkness discovers,
      If the grave-pit be shallow or deep;
And our fathers of old, and our lovers,
      We shall know if they sleep not or sleep.
We shall see whether hell be not heaven,
      Find out whether tares be not grain,
And the joys of thee seventy times seven,
      Our Lady of Pain.

You don’t know what love is Bukowski said
I’m 51 years old look at me
I’m in love with this young broad
I got it bad but she’s hung up too
so it’s all right man that’s the way it should be
I get in their blood and they can’t get me out
They try everything to get away from me
but they all come back in the end
They all came back to me except
the one I planted
I cried over that one
but I cried easy in those days
Don’t let me get onto the hard stuff man
I get mean then
I could sit here and drink beer
with you hippies all night
I could drink ten quarts of this beer
and nothing it’s like water
But let me get onto the hard stuff
and I’ll start throwing people out windows
I’ll throw anybody out the window
I’ve done it
But you don’t know what love is
You don’t know because you’ve never
been in love it’s that simple
I got this young broad see she’s beautiful
She calls me Bukowski
Bukowski she says in this little voice
and I say What
But you don’t know what love is
I’m telling you what it is
but you aren’t listening
There isn’t one of you in this room
would recognize love if it stepped up
and buggered you in the ass
I used to think poetry readings were a copout
Look I’m 51 years old and I’ve been around
I know they’re a copout
but I said to myself Bukowski
starving is even more of a copout
So there you are and nothing is like it should be
That fellow what’s his name Galway Kinnell
I saw his picture in a magazine
He has a handsome mug on him
but he’s a teacher
Christ can you imagine
But then you’re teachers too
here I am insulting you already
No I haven’t heard of him
or him either
They’re all termites
Maybe it’s ego I don’t read much anymore
but these people who build
reputations on five or six books
termites
Bukowski she says
Why do you listen to classical music all day
Can’t you hear her saying that
Bukowski why do you listen to classical music all day
That surprises you doesn’t it
You wouldn’t think a crude bastard like me
could listen to classical music all day
Brahms Rachmaninoff Bartok Telemann
Shit I couldn’t write up here
Too quiet up here too many trees
I like the city that’s the place for me
I put on my classical music each morning
and sit down in front of my typewriter
I light a cigar and I smoke it like this see
and I say Bukowski you’re a lucky man
Bukowski you’ve gone through it all
and you’re a lucky man
and the blue smoke drifts across the table
and I look out the window onto Delongpre Avenue
and I see people walking up and down the sidewalk
and I puff on the cigar like this
and then I lay the cigar in the ashtray like this and take a deep breath
and I begin to write
Bukowski this is the life I say
it’s good to be poor it’s good to have hemorrhoids
it’s good to be in love
But you don’t know what it’s like
You don’t know what it’s like to be in love
If you could see her you’d know what I mean
She thought I’d come up here and get laid
She just knew it
She told me she knew it
Shit I’m 51 years old and she’s 25
and we’re in love and she’s jealous
Jesus it’s beautiful
she said she’d claw my eyes out if I came up here
and got laid
Now that’s love for you
What do any of you know about it
Let me tell you something
I’ve met men in jail who had more style
than the people who hang around colleges
and go to poetry readings
They’re bloodsuckers who come to see
if the poet’s socks are dirty
or if he smells under the arms
Believe me I won’t disappoint em
But I want you to remember this
there’s only one poet in this room tonight
only one poet in this town tonight
maybe only one real poet in this country tonight
and that’s me
What do any of you know about life
What do any of you know about anything
Which of you here has been fired from a job
or else has beaten up your broad
or else has been beaten up by your broad
I was fired from Sears and Roebuck five times
They’d fire me then hire me back again
I was a stockboy for them when I was 35
and then got canned for stealing cookies
I know what’s it like I’ve been there
I’m 51 years old now and I’m in love
This little broad she says
Bukowski
and I say What and she says
I think you’re full of shit
and I say baby you understand me
She’s the only broad in the world
man or woman
I’d take that from
But you don’t know what love is
They all came back to me in the end too
every one of em came back
except that one I told you about
the one I planted We were together seven years
We used to drink a lot
I see a couple of typers in this room but
I don’t see any poets
I’m not surprised
You have to have been in love to write poetry
and you don’t know what it is to be in love
that’s your trouble
Give me some of that stuff
That’s right no ice good
That’s good that’s just fine
So let’s get this show on the road
I know what I said but I’ll have just one
That tastes good
Okay then let’s go let’s get this over with
only afterwards don’t anyone stand close
to an open window

Nothing is better, I well think,
Than love; the hidden well-water
Is not so delicate to drink:
This was well seen of me and her.

I served her in a royal house;
I served her wine and curious meat.
For will to kiss between her brows,
I had no heart to sleep or eat.

Mere scorn God knows she had of me,
A poor scribe, nowise great or fair,
Who plucked his clerk's hood back to see
Her curled-up lips and amorous hair.

I vex my head with thinking this.
Yea, though God always hated me,
And hates me now that I can kiss
Her eyes, plait up her hair to see

How she then wore it on the brows,
Yet am I glad to have her dead
Here in this wretched wattled house
Where I can kiss her eyes and head.

Nothing is better, I well know,
Than love; no amber in cold sea
Or gathered berries under snow:
That is well seen of her and me.

Three thoughts I make my pleasure of:
First I take heart and think of this:
That knight's gold hair she chose to love,
His mouth she had such will to kiss.

Then I remember that sundawn
I brought him by a privy way
Out at her lattice, and thereon
What gracious words she found to say.

(Cold rushes for such little feet —
Both feet could lie into my hand.
A marvel was it of my sweet
Her upright body could so stand.)

"Sweet friend, God give you thank and grace;
Now am I clean and whole of shame,
Nor shall men burn me in the face
For my sweet fault that scandals them."

I tell you over word by word.
She, sitting edgewise on her bed,
Holding her feet, said thus. The third,
A sweeter thing than these, I said.

God, that makes time and ruins it
And alters not, abiding God,
Changed with disease her body sweet,
The body of love wherein she abode.

Love is more sweet and comelier
Than a dove's throat strained out to sing.
All they spat out and cursed at her
And cast her forth for a base thing.

They cursed her, seeing how God had wrought
This curse to plague her, a curse of his.
Fools were they surely, seeing not
How sweeter than all sweet she is.

He that had held her by the hair,
With kissing lips blinding her eyes,
Felt her bright bosom, strained and bare,
Sigh under him, with short mad cries

Out of her throat and sobbing mouth
And body broken up with love,
With sweet hot tears his lips were loth
Her own should taste the savour of

Yea, he inside whose grasp all night
Her fervent body leapt or lay,
Stained with sharp kisses red and white,
Found her a plague to spurn away.

I hid her in this wattled house,
I served her water and poor bread.
For joy to kiss between her brows
Time upon time I was nigh dead.

Bread failed; we got but well-water
And gathered grass with dropping seed.
I had such joy of kissing her,
I had small care to sleep or feed.

Sometimes when service made me glad
The sharp tears leapt between my lids,
Falling on her, such joy I had
To do the service God forbids.

"I pray you let me be at peace,
Get hence, make room for me to die."
She said that: her poor lip would cease,
Put up to mine, and turn to cry.

I said, "Bethink yourself how love
Fared in us twain, what either did;
Shall I unclothe my soul thereof?
That I should do this, God forbid."

Yea, though God hateth us, he knows
That hardly in a little thing
Love faileth of the work it does
Till it grow ripe for gathering.

Six months, and now my sweet is dead
A trouble takes me; I know not
If all were done well, all well said,
No word or tender deed forgot.

Too sweet, for the least part in her,
To have shed life out by fragments; yet,
Could the close mouth catch breath and stir,
I might see something I forget.

Six months, and I sit still and hold
In two cold palms her cold two feet.
Her hair, half grey half ruined gold,
Thrills me and burns me in kissing it.

Love bites and stings me through, to see
Her keen face made of sunken bones.
Her worn-off eyelids madden me,
That were shot through with purple once.

She said, "Be good with me; I grow
So tired for shame's sake, I shall die
If you say nothing:" even so.
And she is dead now, and shame put by.

Yea, and the scorn she had of me
In the old time, doubtless vexed her then.
I never should have kissed her. See
What fools God's anger makes of men!

She might have loved me a little too,
Had I been humbler for her sake.
But that new shame could make love new
She saw not — yet her shame did make.

I took too much upon my love,
Having for such mean service done
Her beauty and all the ways thereof,
Her face and all the sweet thereon.

Yea, all this while I tended her,
I know the old love held fast his part:
I know the old scorn waxed heavier,
Mixed with sad wonder, in her heart.

It may be all my love went wrong —
A scribe's work writ awry and blurred,
Scrawled after the blind evensong —
Spoilt music with no perfect word.

But surely I would fain have done
All things the best I could. Perchance
Because I failed, came short of one,
She kept at heart that other man's.

I am grown blind with all these things:
It may be now she hath in sight
Some better knowledge; still there clings
The old question. Will not God do right?

Well, how are things in Heaven? I wish you’d say,
Because I’d like to know that you’re all right.
Tell me, have you found everlasting day,
Or been sucked in by everlasting night?
For when I shut my eyes your face shows plain;
I hear you make some cheery old remark—
I can rebuild you in my brain,
Though you’ve gone out patrolling in the dark.

You hated tours of trenches; you were proud
Of nothing more than having good years to spend;
Longed to get home and join the careless crowd
Of chaps who work in peace with Time for friend.
That’s all washed out now. You’re beyond the wire:
No earthly chance can send you crawling back;
You’ve finished with machine-gun fire—
Knocked over in a hopeless dud-attack.

Somehow I always thought you’d get done in,
Because you were so desperate keen to live:
You were all out to try and save your skin,
Well knowing how much the world had got to give.
You joked at shells and talked the usual “shop,”
Stuck to your dirty job and did it fine:
With “Jesus Christ! when will it stop?
Three years... It’s hell unless we break their line.”

So when they told me you’d been left for dead
I wouldn’t believe them, feeling it must be true.
Next week the bloody Roll of Honour said
“Wounded and missing”—(That’s the thing to do
When lads are left in shell-holes dying slow,
With nothing but blank sky and wounds that ache,
Moaning for water till they know
It’s night, and then it’s not worth while to wake!)

Good-bye, old lad! Remember me to God,
And tell Him that our politicians swear
They won’t give in till Prussian Rule’s been trod
Under the Heel of England... Are you there?...
Yes... and the war won’t end for at least two years;
But we’ve got stacks of men... I’m blind with tears,
Staring into the dark. Cheero!
I wish they’d killed you in a decent show.