Be Wary the Face of War
That beckons where remembrance treads;
It calls us forth to fight once more,
Where only sorrow spreads.
There came a mad, unholy call—
All able arms to fight and fall.
The willing first went, proud and sure,
Then brass cried out for more.
Poor soldiers thrust through hellish flame,
The beaches red, the hills the same;
In fields and seas their bodies lay—
The price of orders none could stay.
Men left in desert, trench, and rain,
Fighting foes who could not be slain;
The first in line cut trails of blood,
The next were lost within that flood.
Haughtily sent to meet their fate,
They bore the burden far too late;
The angels wept, the mothers mourned,
As boys to bloody graves were borne.
So young—too young—to meet their God,
Their lives consumed by shell and sod;
False names, false ages signed away,
The masquerade of war’s ballet.
They sang new songs with hollow pride,
Until the brutal truth replied—
That war’s no glory, but a sin,
Devouring all who enter in.
Hark! The roaring cannons cry,
The air aflame, the earth awry;
Where nothing certain may remain
But death, and death again.
Trapped between the trenches’ scars,
While iron fell from fiery stars;
The soil convulsed, the heavens moaned,
Till men turned hard as granite stone.
With stoic hearts they quelled their tears,
Haunted by their private fears;
Each night’s return a phantom scene,
Where darkness reigned, and none came clean.
No sleep could soothe, no prayer could keep,
The ghosts that stalked a soldier’s sleep;
In league with death, they lost their claim—
Their souls consumed in death’s own flame.
Written By: Alan.Clark@WW1POET
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