| |
| MOTHER, little mother, | |
| They will tell you, | |
| After they have shot me at sunrise, | |
| I died a coward. | |
| It is not true, little mother— | 5 |
| You will believe me. | |
| |
| You know how we marched away— | |
| Banners—bright bayonets—the Marseillaise. | |
| I shut up the old chansons— | |
| Ah, my diplome!— | 10 |
| France needed her sons for war. | |
| We waited, aching for the hour. | |
| At last it came— | |
| I had my turn in the trenches. | |
| |
| I won’t tell you all— | 15 |
| What it meant to learn the new trade. | |
| A scholar, was I?—and young? | |
| Youth died in me. | |
| And all the old epics, the beautiful songs long silent— | |
| Ah, that was another life. | 20 |
| At first it sickened me— | |
| The torn flesh bleeding, the horrible bodies long dead, | |
| The ruined towns sprawling like toothless hags, | |
| The mud, the lice, the stenches, | |
| The stupefying noise— | 25 |
| A crashing of damned worlds; | |
| And then the command to kill— | |
| At first the loathing was a vomit in my heart. | |
| |
| Then something rose in me | |
| From the abyss. | 30 |
| Life, the great cannibal, | |
| Killing and feeding on death— | |
| I was his workman through ten million years. | |
| I ran to the slaughter singing. | |
| I killed with a shout. | 35 |
| The red rage sucked me up | |
| In its whirlwind, | |
| Dashed me on dancing feet | |
| Against the enemy, | |
| The enemy everlasting. | 40 |
| And my life, tossed on bayonets, | |
| Blown against guns— | |
| Staked, like a last piece of gold, on the hundredth chance— | |
| Always my life came back to me unscathed. | |
| |
| Was it man to man— | 45 |
| The haughty beauty of war? | |
| I grew numb at last, | |
| I felt no more. | |
| I slipped off man’s pride like a garment, | |
| A rotten rag— | 50 |
| It was brute to brute in a wallow of blood and filth. | |
| |
| And so, in that last charge on Thiaumont— | |
| Little shattered city | |
| Lost and won, won and lost | |
| Day after day | 55 |
| In the interminable battle— | |
| In that hot rush I killed three Boches, | |
| Stuck them like squeaking pigs. | |
| The soft flesh sputtering, | |
| The nick of the steel at bones— | 60 |
| I felt them no more than the crunch of an insect under my foot | |
| In the old days. | |
| Then I fell, worn out, | |
| Under a wall. | |
| Hungry, thirsty, listless— | 65 |
| My gun dropped from my hand. | |
| I could not rise; | |
| Perhaps my eyes closed….. | |
| |
| When life came back a big Boche was standing over me— | |
| He had my gun, but his face was kind. | 70 |
| “I thought you were dead,” he said, and stood looking at me. | |
| Then he unscrewed his canteen— | |
| “Drink,” he said, “poor little one— | |
| I won’t kill you.” | |
| |
| I sprang up, as tall as he, and took his hand, | 75 |
| Babbling, “It’s foolish business—why should we? | |
| I’m through with it.” | |
| And a great strength rose in me, | |
| And a white light filled me; | |
| Waves of unbearable love washed over me, | 80 |
| And I knew I could fight no more. | |
| |
| The charge had rolled on— | |
| I slipped away, | |
| Crying, “It is over—over forever—men shall kill no more.” | |
| I shouted the news, | 85 |
| I summoned the soldiers. | |
| The tongues of fire came down upon me— | |
| “Let the guns rot,” I said, | |
| And the cannon rust— | |
| Look in your brother’s eyes | 90 |
| And clasp his hand.” | |
| |
| So they took me and tried me, | |
| And I must die. | |
| But for telling the truth— | |
| Not for what they say. | 95 |
| It will surely be, little mother. | |
| The sin that was little at first | |
| In the savage forest | |
| When men fought with clubs, | |
| The sin we have gorged and glutted | 100 |
| With gases and bombs, | |
| And machine-guns, | |
| And battle-ships of sea and air— | |
| It has grown heavy and monstrous, | |
| It will be cast off like the plague. | 105 |
| There will be a new nation— | |
| No one shall stop us from loving each other. | |
| |
| So goodby, little mother. | |
| I don’t mind dying for it— | |
| That nation. | 110 |
| I see it. | |
| |
