Page:A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919.djvu/376

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All mangled now, where shells have burst,

And lead and steel have done their worst;

The tender tissues ploughed away,

The years' slow processes effaced:

The Mother of us all—disgraced.

And some leave wives behind, young wives;

Already some have launched new lives:

A little daughter, little son—

For thus this blundering world goes on.

But never more will any see

The old secure felicity,

The kindnesses that made us glad

Before the world went mad.

They'll never hear another bird,

Another gay or loving word—

Those men who lie so cold and lone,

Far in a country not their own;

Those men who died for you and me,

That England still might sheltered be

And all our lives go on the same

(Although to live is almost shame).

E. V. Lucas

RIDDLES, R.F.C.

(1916)