Sherry Chandler » Robert Graves
Robert Graves
A Dead Boche
TO you who’d read my songs of War
And only hear of blood and fame,
I’ll say (you’ve heard it said before)
”War’s Hell!” and if you doubt the same,
Today I found in Mametz Wood
A certain cure for lust of blood:
Where, propped against a shattered trunk,
In a great mess of things unclean,
Sat a dead Boche; he scowled and stunk
With clothes and face a sodden green,
Big-bellied, spectacled, crop-haired,
Dribbling black blood from nose and beard.
— Robert Graves, from Fairies and Fusiliers (Knopf, 1918)
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2 Comments
1. dibbo replies at 5th November 2008, 12:50 pm :
Thanks for that Robert Graves, I didn’t know it and it set me off on a search. It’s far more powerful than his ‘Letter to S.S. from Mametz Wood’. I then found Owen Shears’ recent poem ‘Mametz Wood’. I then found David Jones’ poem, ‘In Parenthesis’ from a sketchbook from the Somme at http://www.ElizabethHaines.co.uk/somme.htm. Next I’ll be buying a copy of John Masefield’s account.
2. sherry replies at 5th November 2008, 3:06 pm :
Thanks for the link to the Elizabeth Haines sketchbook. It’s exquisite.
And thanks for some poets to look out. More on David Jones here:
http://www.cwru.edu/artsci/engl/VSALM/mod/dresch/index.html
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