• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • Reading
    • Blog
    • On Writing
    • Interviews
    • Famous Authors
    • Stories
    • Poetry
  • Writing
    • Writing Tips
    • Writing Inspiration
    • Playground
    • Writing Prompts
  • Publishing
    • Publishing Tips
    • Literary Magazines
    • Book Publishers
  • Promotions
    • Book Promotions
    • Promoting Tips
    • Classifieds
    • Newsletter
  • Submit

Every Day Poems

A Poem A Day

  • Poetry of the 1500s
  • Poetry of the1600s
  • Poetry of the 1700s
  • Poems for Kids
  • War Poems
  • Every Poem

The Rear-Guard by Siegfried Sassoon

March 11, 2010 by Every Writer

Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)

THE REAR-GUARD

(Hindenburg Line, April 1917.)

Groping along the tunnel, step by step,
He winked his prying torch with patching glare
From side to side, and sniffed the unwholesome air.

Tins, boxes, bottles, shapes too vague to know,
A mirror smashed, the mattress from a bed;
And he, exploring fifty feet below
The rosy gloom of battle overhead.

Tripping, he grabbed the wall; saw some one lie
Humped at his feet, half-hidden by a rug,
And stooped to give the sleeper’s arm a tug.
“I’m looking for headquarters.” No reply.
“God blast your neck!” (For days he’d had no sleep,)
“Get up and guide me through this stinking place.”
Savage, he kicked a soft, unanswering heap,
And flashed his beam across the livid face
Terribly glaring up, whose eyes yet wore
Agony dying hard ten days before;
And fists of fingers clutched a blackening wound.

Alone he staggered on until he found
Dawn’s ghost that filtered down a shafted stair
To the dazed, muttering creatures underground
Who hear the boom of shells in muffled sound.
At last, with sweat of horror in his hair,
He climbed through darkness to the twilight air,
Unloading hell behind him step by step.

Filed Under: War Poems

Primary Sidebar

AD




Search

Latest

Because We Steer by Dead Stars by Claire Scott

Claire Scott is an award winning poet who has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has been accepted by the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, New Ohio Review, Enizagam and Healing Muse among others.

I’ve Set Out All of the Traps for Us by Kiara Nicole Letcher

I start to miss you right after you leave
and then at night I feel a deep ache
in that need spot.

The Shaman by Larry D. Thomas

Larry D. Thomas, a member of the Texas Institute of Letters, was the 2008 Texas Poet Laureate. He has published several award-winning and critically acclaimed collections of poetry

Copyright © 2023 · Metro Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in