Page:A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919.djvu/362

 362 INVALIDED

NDER our curtain of fire,

Over the clotted clods,

We charged, to be withered, to reel

And despairingly wheel

When the bugles bade us retire

From the terrible odds.

As we ebbed with the battle-tide,

Fingers of red-hot steel

Suddenly closed on my side.

I fell, and began to pray.