I’ve watched the Seasons passing slow, so slow,
In the fields between La Bassée and Bethune;
Primroses and the first warm day of Spring,
Red poppy floods of June,
August, and yellowing Autumn, so
To Winter nights knee-deep in mud or snow,
And you’ve been everything.

Dear, you’ve been everything that I most lack
In these soul-deadening trenches—pictures, books,
Music, the quiet of an English wood,
Beautiful comrade-looks,
The narrow, bouldered mountain-track,
The broad, full-bosomed ocean, green and black,
And Peace, and all that’s good.


To mark Remembrance Day and the 90th anniversary of the end of the 'War to end all wars', it seems appropriate to have something by a Classicist -- Robert Graves, of course -- who served in the War and wrote of his experiences in Goodbye to All That. More of Graves' poetry is available online here ...