In the Desert Today (selected verses)
What did I see in the desert to-day, In the cold, pale light of dawn? I saw the Honeys creaking out, Their brave, bright pennants torn; And heads were high against the sky, And faces were grim and drawn. …
Tag: World War II poetry
Morning after the Barrage at El Alamein
There’s a Devil in the dawn – Horrific spawn of last night’s hideous moon, That hung above the gun’s inferno And smiled on men who died too soon. There’s a Devil in the dawn – See him fawn on those …
M.E. Medley
Everywhere Radios blare, Sordid street and city square; Wailing music thin and high, Jungle rhythm from the sky; Stench and squalor, Tom-tom beat, Blinding glare, and plaguing heat; Howling hell of every breed, Every colour, every creed, Indigo Nubian, …
Battle Interlude
The ground shuddered, the canvas shook, In the darkness flash on flash Swept from left to right And right to left; One here, another one there, One this side, then that side,~ Ever faster. Now A dim horizon is a …
Desert Warfare
A universe of space, infinite sands, Unbroken line to mark off cloudless blue. A shimmering heat that plucks the very life Of withered thorns which strive and stretch out shoots Groping in vain to take a hold on life. The …
White Cliffs (extracts)
Thou art a gem; and, set within a sea Of azure blue, thy white cliffs nobly rise. Rugged and yet beautiful they guard thee. Thou art too rare, thou art a wond’rous prize. Many’s the time thou hast been beset, …
A Soldier – His Prayer
(This anonymous poem was blown by the wind into a slit trench at El Agheila, Libya, during a heavy bombardment). Stay with me, God. The night is dark, The night is cold: my little spark Of courage dies. The night …