In The Small Hours: Tyne Cot
John Brian Leaver writes of the bemusement and anguish of a man embroiled in the folly of war.
Sir, Private Peaceful, plucked from shire,
to danse macabre on rusty wire,
seeks permission to speak, sir, before we retire.
Enter, Peaceful, but make it quick,
the night grows cold, a dram awaits me
by my fire
Sir, I wish to go to my homestead hearth,
my dad awaits me at the door, with mother
wringing her hands in pinafore
and I've had my fill of this mouldering row
fixed between men I do not know
Request denied; I brook no quarter in my ranks,
your watch to hold our crumbling flanks.
but, sir, I hear no whistle blow, no whizz-bang bomb, no stuttering gun, no echo, no din,
only silence filtering in
Sir, the tide of war will break itself
on the rock of bone and pain, and
we that are left that can't go home
will never know if we won
or if we died in vain.
