Читать книгу Gloucestershire Friends: Poems From a German Prison Camp - F. W. Harvey - Страница 8

PRISONERS

Comrades of risk and rigour long ago

Who have done battle under honour’s name,

Hoped (living or shot down) some meed of fame,

And wooed bright Danger for a thrilling kiss,—

Laugh, oh laugh well, that we have come to this!

Laugh, oh laugh loud, all ye who long ago

Adventure found in gallant company!

Safe in Stagnation, laugh, laugh bitterly,

While on this filthiest backwater of Time’s flow

Drift we and rot, till something set us free!

Laugh like old men with senses atrophied,

Heeding no Present, to the Future dead,

Nodding quite foolish by the warm fireside

And seeing no flame, but only in the red

And flickering embers, pictures of the past:—

Life like a cinder fading black at last.