Page:Poems by Isaac Rosenberg (1922).djvu/123



The plunging limbers over the shattered track Racketed with their rusty freight, Stuck out like many crowns of thorns, And the rusty stakes like sceptres old To stay the flood of brutish men Upon our brothers dear.

The wheels lurched over sprawled dead But pained them not, though their bones crunched; Their shut mouths made no moan. They lie there huddled, friend and foeman, Man born of man, and born of woman; And shells go crying over them From night till night and now.

Earth has waited for them, All the time of their growth Fretting for their decay: