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...BURNING DAWN by HAYDEN CARRUTH A DREAM OF JULIUS CAESAR by ROBERT FROST SPEAKING TERMS by JAMES GALVIN CHILD OF MY HEART by EDWIN MARKHAM BOTANICAL GARDENS by EDGAR LEE MASTERS HAD I THE CHOICE (AFTER WALT WHITMAN) by GEORGE SANTAYANA IN GRANTCHESTER MEADOWS; ON HEARING A SKYLARK SING by GEORGE SANTAYANA FETES GALANTES: ROMANCES SANS PAROLE, SELECTION by PAUL VERLAINE |