The Ghosts of No Man’s Land: The Rhymes of a Red Cross Man

Some wonderful, vivid poetry from the First World War. Excerpt from the poem ‘The Mourners’: I look across the aching womb of night; I look across the mist that masks the dead; The moon is tired and gives but little light, The stars have gone to bed. The earth is sick and seems to breathe with pain; A lost wind whimpers in a mangled tree; I do not see the foul, corpse-cluttered plain, The dead I do not see. The slain I would not see . . . and so I lift My eyes from out the shambles where they lie; When lo a million woman-faces drift Like pale leaves through the sky. The cheeks of some are channelled deep with tears; But some are tearless, with wild eyes that stare Into the shadow of the coming years Of fathomless despair And some are young, and some are very old; And some are rich, some poor beyond belief; Yet all are strangely like, set in the mould Of everlasting grief.