Page:Poems by Isaac Rosenberg (1922).djvu/129

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POEMS FROM CAMP AND TRENCH

Spent—were charged
To make a place for them who knew
No pain in any place.

The good priest came to pray;
Our ears half heard,
And half we thought
Of alien things, irrelevant;
And the heat and thirst were great.

The good priest read: "I heard...
Dimly my brain
Held words and lost....
Sudden my blood ran cold....
God! God! It could not be.

He read my brother's name;
I sank—
I clutched the priest.
They did not tell me it was he
Was killed three days ago.

What are the great sceptred dooms
To us, caught
In the wild wave?
We break ourselves on them,
My brother, our hearts and years.

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