Page:Poems of the Great War - Cunliffe.djvu/86

 60 LINCOLN COLCORD

Tumbled, broken, grotesque, in attitudes unhuman, in lumpish, swollen heaps, they lie,

Where death suddenly snatched them up and flung them down.

A strange, dark, silent scene ;

Here passed the awful charge three days ago ;

Here met the choking volley, shattered out and fell.

Three days and nights they have been lying here ; No help could reach them, cast between the battle

lines ; No help is needed now.

Slowly above their heads the conflict wore itself

away ; Calm settled on the shaking, riven air; The sharp cries of the wounded stopped one by one,

their groans grew fainter ; A few crawled off — the others lay as they had

fallen, under the sun and stars ; Then the third night, and peace at last, the quietness

restored.

3.

Listen ! — could one be living ? — come this way ;

Here where a score of bodies are drawn mysteriously

together, A turning face catches a gleam of starlight,

A hand moves, winnowing the air.

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