ESCAPE
"August 6, 1916. Officer previously reported died of wounds, now reported wounded:—Graves, Captain R., Royal Welsh Fusiliers."
But I was dead, an hour or more.
I woke when I'd already passed the door
That Cerberus guards, and half-way down the road
To Lethe, as an old Greek signpost showed . . .
Dear Lady Proserpine . . .
Cleared my poor buzzing head and sent me back . . .
Breathless, with leaping heart along the track.
After me roared and clattered angry hosts
Of demons, heroes, and policemen-ghosts . . .
There's still some morphia that I bought on leave.
Then swiftly Cerberus' wide mouth I cram
With army biscuit smeared with ration jam; . . .
A crash; the beast blocks up the corridor
With monstrous hairy carcase, red and dun—
Too late! for I've sped through.
O Life! O sun!
This vivid resilience occurs not only after the most cruel physical agony, but during the long wearing-down of winter in the trenches—as difficult to bear as protracted toothache.
TO ROBERT NICHOLS
From Frise on the Somme in February, 1917, in answer to a letter saying: "I am just finishing my Faun's Holiday. I wish you were here to feed him with cherries."
Here by a snow-bound river
In scrapen holes we shiver,
And like old bitterns we
Boom to you plaintively:
Robert, how can I rhyme
Verses for your desire—
Sleek fauns and cherry-time,
Vague music and green trees,
Hot sun and gentle breeze,
