| |
| I WAS an English shell, | |
| Cunningly made and well, | |
| With a heart of fire in an iron frame, | |
| Ready to break in fury and flame, | |
| Slice through the ranks my raging way, | 5 |
| Dying myself, to slay. | |
| |
| Out from the heart of the battle-ship, | |
| Yelling a song of death, I rose, | |
| Brake from the cannon’s smoky lip | |
| Into a land of foes:— | 10 |
| How was I baffled? I soared and sank | |
| Over the bastion, across the hill, | |
| Into the lap of a grassy bank, | |
| Impotent there to kill. | |
| Slowly the thunder died away;— | 15 |
| My merry comrades, how you roared, | |
| Loud and jubilant, while I lay | |
| Sunk in the slothful sward! | |
| Peace came back with her corn and wine, | |
| Smiling faint with a bleeding breast, | 20 |
| While in the offing, over the brine | |
| My battle-ship steered to the West. | |
| |
| Then were the long slopes crowned again | |
| With clustering vines and waving grain, | |
| Winter by winter the stealing rain | 25 |
| Fretted me rotting there. | |
| Suddenly once as I sadly slept, | |
| Tinkling, the slow team over me stept,— | |
| Jarring the ploughshare,—I was swept | |
| Into the breezy air. | 30 |
| Why did he tempt me? I had lain | |
| Year by year in the peaceful rain, | |
| Till my lionlike heart had grown | |
| Dull and motionless, heavy as stone;— | |
| Mocking, he smote me:— | 35 |
| Then I leapt | |
| Out in my anger, and screamed and swept | |
| Him as he laughed in a storm of blood, | |
| Shattered sinew and flying brain, | |
| Brake the cottage and scarred the wood, | 40 |
| Roaring across the plain. | |
| How should you blame me? Ay, ’t was peace! | |
| War was the word I had learned to know;— | |
| Think you, I was an English shell, | |
| Trained one lesson alone to spell— | 45 |
| I had vowed as I lay below, | |
| Vowed to perish and find release | |
| Slaying an English foe. | |
| |
