Above All I Am Not

I Tried To Peg Out Soldierly,--no Use! One Dies Of War Like Any Old Disease.

The Pallor Of Girls' Brows Shall Be Their Pall; Their Flowers The Tenderness Of Patient Minds, And Each Slow Dusk A Drawing-down Of Blinds.

Was It For This The Clay Grew Tall?

The Universal Pervasion Of Ugliness, Hideous Landscapes, Vile Noises, Foul Language...everything. Unnatural, Broken, Blasted; The Distortion Of The Dead, Whose Unburiable Bodies Sit Outside The Dug Outs All Day, All Night, The Most Execrable Sights On Earth. In Poetry We Call Them The Most Glorious.

And Death Fell With Me, Like A Deepening Moan. And He, Picking A Manner Of Worm, Which Half Had Hid Its Bruises In The Earth, But Crawled No Further, Showed Me Its Feet, The Feet Of Many Men, And The Fresh-severed Head Of It, My Head.