Unhappy Far-Off Things

A Dirge Of Victory (Sonnet)

Lift not thy trumpet, Victory, to the sky,

Nor through battalions nor by batteries blow,

But over hollows full of old wire go,

Where among dregs of war the long-dead lie

With wasted iron that the guns passed by.

When they went eastwards like a tide at flow;

There blow thy trumpet that the dead may know,

Who waited for thy coming, Victory.

It is not we that have deserved thy wreath,

They waited there among the towering weeds.

The deep mud burned under the thermite's breath,

And winter cracked the bones that no man heeds:

Hundreds of nights flamed by: the seasons passed.

And thou last come to them at last, at last!