Nothing says “I miss you” quite like war poetry you carved in your door with a Stanley knife
Letter to Robert Graves
24 July 1918
American Red Cross Hosptial, No. 22
98-99 Lancaster Gate, W. 2
Dear Roberto,
I’d timed my death in action to the minute
(The Nation with my deathly verses in it).
The day told off - 13- (the month July)-
The picture planned - O Threshold of the dark!
Because the bloody Bullet missed its mark.
Here I am; they would send me back-
Kind M.O. at Base; Sassoon’s morale grown slack;
Swallowed all his proud high thoughts and acquiesced.
O Gate of Lancaster, O Blightyland the Blessed.
No visitors allowed
Since Friends arrived in crowd-
Jabber - Gesture - Jabber - Gesture - Nerves went phut and failed
After the first afternoon when MarshMoonStreetMeiklejohn ArdoursandenduranSitwellitis prevailed,
Caused complications and set my brain a-hop;
Sleeplessexasperuicide, O Jesu make it stop!
But yesterday afternoon my reasoning Rivers ran solemnly in,
With peace in the pools of his spectacled eyes and a wisely omnipotent grin;
And I fished in that steady grey stream and decided that I
After all am no longer the Worm that refuses to die.
But a gallant and glorious lyrical soldjer;
Bolder and bolder; as he gets older;
Shouting ‘Back to the Front
For a scrimmaging Stunt.’
(I wish the weather wouldn’t keep on getting colder.)
Yes, you can touch my Banker when you need him.
Why keep a Jewish friend unless you bleed him?
Oh yes, he’s doing very well and sleeps from Two till four.
And there was Jolly Otterleen a knocking at the door,
But Matron says she mustn’t, not however loud she knocks
(Though she’s bags of golden Daisies and some Raspberries in a box),
Be admitted to the wonderful and wild and wobbly-witted sarcastic soldier-poet with a plaster on his crown,
Who pretends he doesn’t know it (he’s the Topic of the Town).
My God, my God, I’m so excited; I’ve just had a letter
From Stable who’s commanding the Twenty-Fifth Battalion.
And my company, he tells me, doing better and better,
Pinched six Saxons after lunch,
And bagged machine-guns by the bunch.
But I - wasn’t there-
O blast it isn’t fair,
Because they’ll all be wondering why
Dotty Captain wasn’t standing by
When they came marching home.
But I don’t care; I made them love me
Although they didn’t want to do it, and I’ve sent them a glorious Gramophone and God send you back to me
Over the green eviscerating sea-
And I’m ill and afraid to go back to them because those five-nines are so damned awful.
When you think of them all bursting and you’re lying on your bed,
With the books you loved and longed for on the table; and your head
All crammed with village verses about Daffodils and Geese - … O Jesu make it cease…
O Rivers please take me. and make me
Go back to the war till it break me.
Some day my brain will go BANG,
And they’ll say what lovely faces were
The soldier-lads he sang
Does this break your heart? What do I care?
Sassons