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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
HEADQUARTERS, by GILBERT FRANKAU First Line: A league and a league from the trenches - from the traversed maze of the lines Last Line: "the blaze of some woman's roses. ... ""bombardment orders, sir." Subject(s): World War I; First World War | |||
A LEAGUE and a league from the trenchesfrom the traversed maze of the lines, Where daylong the sniper watches and daylong the bullet whines, And the cratered earth is in travail with mines and with countermines Here, where haply some woman dreamed (are those her roses that bloom In the garden beyond the windows of my littered working room?) We have decked the map for our masters as a bride is decked for the groom. Fair, on each lettered numbered squarecrossroad and mound and wire, Loophole, redoubt, and emplacementlie the targets their mouths desire; Gay with purples and browns and blues, have we traced them their arcs of fire. And ever the type-keys chatter; and ever our keen wires bring Word from the watchers a-crouch below, word from the watchers a-wing: And ever we hear the distant growl of our hid guns thundering. Hear it hardly, and turn again to our maps, where the trench lines crawl, Red on the gray and each with a sign for the ranging shrapnel's fall Snakes that our masters shall scotch at dawn, as is written here on the wall. For the weeks of our waiting draw to a close. ... There is scarcely a leaf astir In the garden beyond my windows, where the twilight shadows blur The blaze of some woman's roses. ... "Bombardment orders, sir." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...D'ANNUNZIO by ERNEST HEMINGWAY 1915: THE TRENCHES by CONRAD AIKEN TO OUR PRESIDENT by KATHARINE LEE BATES THE HORSES by KATHARINE LEE BATES CHILDREN OF THE WAR by KATHARINE LEE BATES THE U-BOAT CREWS by KATHARINE LEE BATES THE RED CROSS NURSE by KATHARINE LEE BATES WAR PROFITS by KATHARINE LEE BATES THE UNCHANGEABLE by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN AMMUNITION COLUMN by GILBERT FRANKAU |
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