THE OBSERVERS

Faint on the ears that strain to hear, their orders trickle down

“Degrees — twelve — left of zero line — corrector one three eight —

Three thousand.”... Shift our trails and lift the muzzles that shall drown

The rifle's idle chatter when our sendings detonate.

Sending or still, these serve our will; the hidden eyes that mark

From gutted farm, from laddered tree that scans the furrowed slope,

From coigns of slag whose pit-ropes sag on burrowed ways and dark,

In open trench where sandbags hold the steady periscope.

Waking, they know the instant foe, the bullets phutting by,

The blurring lens, the sodden map, the wires that leak or break!

Sleeping, they dream of shells that scream adown a sunless sky —

And the splinters patter round them in their dug-outs as they wake.

Not theirs, the wet glad bayonet, the red and racing hour,

The rush that clears the bombing-post with knife and hand-grenade;

Not theirs the zest when, steel to breast, the last survivors cower,—

Yet can ye hold the ground ye won, save these be there to aid?

Careless they give while yet they live; the dead we tasked too sore

Bear witness we were naught begrudged of riches or of youth;

Careless they gave; across their grave our calling salvoes roar,

And those we maimed come back to us in proof our dead speak truth!