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.
Here, on each numbered lettered square,--cross-road and mound and wire, Loophole, redoubt, and emplacement, are 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 clatter; 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."
Their rugs are sodden, their heads are down, their tails are turned to the storm. (Would you know them, you that groomed them in the sleek fat days of peace,-- When the tiles rang to their pawings in the lighted stalls and warm,-- Now the foul clay cakes on breeching-strap and clogs the quick-release?)
The blown rain stings, there is never a star, the tracks are rivers of slime. (You must harness up by guesswork with a failing torch for light, Instep-deep in unmade standings, for it’s active-service time, And our resting weeks are over, and we move the guns to-night.)
The iron tires slither, the traces sag; their blind hooves stumble and slide; They are war-worn, they are weary, soaked with sweat and sopped with rain. (You must hold them, you must help them, swing your lead and centre wide Where the greasy granite pave peters out to squelching drain.)
There is shrapnel bursting a mile in front on the road that the guns must take: (You are nervous, you are thoughtful, you are shifting in your seat, As you watch the ragged feathers flicker orange flame and break)-- But the teams are pulling steady down the battered village street.
You have shod them cold, and their coats are long, and their bellies gray with the mud; They have done with gloss and polish, but the fighting heart’s unbroke. We, who saw them hobbling after us down white roads flecked with blood, Patient, wondering why we left them, till we lost them in the smoke;