White flabbiness goes brown and lean, Dumpling arms are now brass bars, They've learnt to suffer and live clean, And to think below the stars. They've steeled a tender, girlish heart, Tempered it with a man's pride, Learning to play the butcher's part Though the woman screams inside -- Learning to leap the parapet, Face the open, rush, and then To stab with the stark bayonet, Side by side with fighting men. On Achi Baba's rock their bones Whiten, and on Flanders' plain, But of their travailings and groans Poetry is born again. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE THREE LITTLE KITTENS (A CAT'S TALE, WITH ADDITIONS) by ELIZA LEE CABOT FOLLEN ON THE EMIGRATION TO AMERICA AND PEOPLING WESTERN COUNTRY by PHILIP FRENEAU MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG: HER DEATH by THOMAS HOOD THE FIRST THANKSGIVING DAY [1621] by MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON MINSTREL OF THE SUN by FREDERICK HENRY HERBERT ADLER A SONG: REVENGE AGAINST CYNTHIA by PHILIP AYRES EPITAPH ON MR. TURNER OF ST. MARY-HALL by WILLIAM BROWNE (1591-1643) |