We are the guns, and your masters! Saw ye our flashes ?
Heard ye the scream of our shells in the night, and the shuddering crashes ?
Saw ye our work by the roadside, the shrouded things lying,
Moaning to God that He made them — the maimed and the dying ?
Husbands or sons,
Fathers or lovers, we break them. We are the guns!’
We are the guns and ye serve us. Dare ye grow weary,
Steadfast at night-time, at noon-time; or waking, when dawn winds blow dreary
Over the fields and the flats and the reeds of the barrier-water,
To wait on the hour of our choosing, the minute decided for slaughter ?
Swift, the clock runs;
yea, to the ultimate second. Stand to your guns!
We are the guns, and we need you; here, in the timbered
Pits that are screened by the crest, and the copse where at dusk ye unlimbered;
Pits that one found us — and, finding, gave life (Did he flinch from the giving?);
Laboured by moonlight when wraith of the dead brooded yet o’er the living;
Ere, with the sun’s
Rising, the sorrowful spirit abandoned its guns.
Who but the guns shall avenge him? Battery — Action!
Load us and lay to the centremost hair of the dial-sight’s refraction;
Set your quick hands to our levers to compass the sped soul’s assoiling;
Brace your taut limbs to the shock when the thrust of the barrel recoiling
Deafens and stuns!
Vengeance is ours for our servants: trust ye the guns!
Least of our bond-slaves or greatest, grudge ye the burden ?
Hard, is this service of ours which has only our service for guerdon:
Grow the limbs lax, and unsteady the hands, which aforetime we trusted ?
Flawed, the clear crystal of sight; and the clean steel of hardihood rusted ?
Dominant ones,
Are we not tried serfs and proven-true to our guns!
Ye are the guns ! Are we worthy? Shall not these speak for us,
Out of the woods where the tree-trunks are slashed with the vain bolts that seek for us,
Thunder of batteries firing in unison, swish of shell flighting;
Hissing that rushes to silence and breaks to the thud of alighting;
Death that outruns
Horseman and foot? Are we justified ? Answer, O guns!
Yea! by your works are ye justified — toil unrelieved ;
Manifold labours, co-ordinate each to the sending achieved ;
Discipline, not of the feet but the soul, unremitting, unfeigned;
Tortures unholy by flame and by maiming, known, faced, and disdained
Courage that shuns
Only foolhardiness; even by these, are ye worthy your guns.
Wherefore, — and unto ye only — power hath been given;
Yea! beyond man, over men, over desolate cities and riven;
Yea! beyond space, over earth and the seas and the sky’s high dominions;
Yea! beyond time, over Hell and the fiends and the Death-angel’s pinions.
Vigilant ones,
Loose them, and shatter, and spare not. We are the guns!
(Gilbert Frankau)
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Based on Topics: Man Poems, Night Poems, Time Poems, Death & Dying Poems, Soul Poems, Sense & Perception Poems, Sons Poems, Power Poems, Fathers Poems, Work & Career Poems, Charity PoemsBased on Keywords: recoiling, timbered, tree-trunks, outruns, unrelieved, noon-time, maiming, deafens, death-angel, bond-slaves, flighting