The Glory of the Trenches

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Сторінка 106 - Of Heaven or Hell I have no power to sing, I cannot ease the burden of your fears, Or make quick-coming death a little thing, Or bring again the pleasure of past years, Nor for my words shall ye forget your tears, Or hope again for aught that I can say, The idle singer of an empty day.
Сторінка 16 - We want the touch of Christ's hand upon our literature, as it touched other dead things — we want the sense of the saturation of Christ's blood upon the souls of our poets, that it may cry through them in answer to the ceaseless wail of the Sphinx of our humanity, expounding agony into renovation.
Сторінка 33 - ... expected. One morning you awake to find that a tag has been prepared, containing the entire medical history of your injury. The stretcher-bearers come in with grins on their faces, your tag is tied to the top button of your pyjamas, jocular appointments are made by the fellows you leave behind — many of whom you know are dying — to meet you in London, and you are carried out. The train is thoroughly equipped with doctors and nurses ; the lying cases travel in little white bunks. No one who...
Сторінка 117 - The exact day when he dies does not matter — to-morrow or fifty years hence. The vital concern is not when, but how. The civilian philosopher considers what we've lost. He forgets that it could never have been ours for long. In many cases it was misused and scarcely worth having while it lasted. Some of us were too weak to use it well. We might use it better now. We turn from such thoughts and reckon up our gains. On the debit side we place ourselves as we were. We probably caught a train every...
Сторінка 102 - neath the forgetting sky. So long Sleep was our only cure That when Death piped of rest made sure, We cast our fleshly crutches down, Laughing like boys in Hamelin Town. And this we did while loving life, Yet loving more than home or wife The kindness...
Сторінка 100 - That doesn't of necessity mean that he fails to do his duty ; what it means is that he fails to do a little bit more than his duty. When a man plays the game, he does things which it requires a braver man than himself to accomplish; he never knows when he's done; he acknowledges no limit to his cheerfulness and strength; whatever his rank, he holds his life less valuable than that of the humblest ; he laughs at danger not because he does not dread it, but because he has learnt that there are ailments...
Сторінка 27 - There's no kinder creature in the whole wide world than the average Tommy. He makes a friend of any stray animal he can find. He shares his last franc with a chap who isn't his pal. He risks his life quite inconsequently to rescue anyone who's wounded. When he's gone over the top with bomb and bayonet for the express purpose of "doing in" the Hun, he makes a comrade of the Fritzie he captures. You'll see him coming down the battered trenches with some scared lad of a German at his side. He's gabbling...
Сторінка 68 - ... Britannia, with a colossal Union Jack for background, came before the footlights and sang the recruiting song of the moment, "We don't want to lose you But we think you ought to go." Some one else recited a poem calculated to shame men into immediate enlistment, two lines of which I remember: " I wasn't among the first to go But I went, thank God, I went.
Сторінка 30 - He thinks he's capturing a Hun trench, taking prisoners in a bombed in dug-out. In an instant, like a mother with a frightened child, she's bending over him; soon she has coaxed his head back on the pillow. Men do not die in vain when they evoke such women. And the men — the chaps in the cots! As a patient the first sight you have of them is a muddy stretcher. The care with which the bearers advance is only equalled by the waiters in oldestablished London Clubs when they bring in one of their choicest...
Сторінка 27 - Hun on the back, hands, him chocolate and cigarets, exchanges souvenirs and shares with him his last luxury. If anyone interferes with his Fritzie he's willing to fight. When they come to the cage where the prisoner has to be handed over, the farewells of these companions whose acquaintance has been made at the bayonet-point are often as absurd as they are affecting. I suppose one only learns the value of kindness when he feels the need of it himself. The men out there have said "Good-by...

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