58292: Spring Offensive

<p dir="ltr"> Halted against the shade of a last hill<br> They fed, and eased of pack-loads, were at ease;<br> And leaning on the nearest chest or knees<br> Carelessly slept.<br> But many there stood still<br> To face the stark blank sky beyond the ridge,<br> Knowing their feet had come to the end of the world.<br> Marvelling they stood, and watched the long grass swirled<br> By the May breeze, murmurous with wasp and midge;<br> And though the summer oozed into their veins<br> Like an injected drug for their bodies' pains,<br> Sharp on their souls hung the imminent ridge of grass,<br> Fearfully flashed the sky's mysterious glass.<br> Hour after hour they ponder the warm field<br> And the far valley behind, where buttercups<br> Had blessed with gold their slow boots coming up;<br> When even the little brambles would not yield<br> But clutched and clung to them like sorrowing arms.<br> They breathe like trees unstirred.<br> Till like a cold gust thrills the little word<br> At which each body and its soul begird<br> And tighten them for battle. No alarms<br> Of bugles, no high flags, no clamorous haste, ---<br> Only a lift and flare of eyes that faced<br> The sun, like a friend with whom their love is done.<br> O larger shone that smile against the sun, ---<br> Mightier than his whose bounty these have spurned.<br> So, soon they topped the hill, and raced together<br> Over an open stretch of herb and heather<br> Exposed. And instantly the whole sky burned<br> With fury against them; earth set sudden cups<br> In thousands for their blood; and the green slope<br> Chasmed and deepened sheer to infinite space.<br> Of them who running on that last high place<br> Breasted the surf of bullets, or went up<br> On the hot blast and fury of hell's upsurge,<br> Or plunged and fell away past this world's verge,<br> Some say God caught them even before they fell.<br> But what say such as from existence' brink<br> Ventured but drave too swift to sink,<br> The few who rushed in the body to enter hell,<br> And there out-fiending all its fiends and flames<br> With superhuman inhumanities,<br> Long-famous glories, immemorial shames ---<br> And crawling slowly back, have by degrees<br> Regained cool peaceful air in wonder---<br> Why speak not they of comrades that went under?</p>