We are the slaves of the guns,
Serfs to the dominant things;
Ours are the eyes and the ears,
And the brains of their messagings.
Ours are the hands that unleash
The blind gods that raven by night,
The lords of the terror at dawn,
When the landmarks are blotted from sight
By the lit curdled churnings of smoke;
When the lost trenches crumble and spout
Into loud roaring fountains of flame ;
Till, their prison walls down, with a shout
And a cheer, ordered line after line,
Black specks on the barrage of gray
That we lift — as they leap — to the clock,
Our infantry storm to the fray.
These are our masters, the slim
Grim muzzles that irk in the pit;
That chafe for the rushing of wheels,
For the teams plunging madly to bit
As the gunners swing down to unkey,
For the trails sweeping half-circle-right,
For the six breech-blocks clashing as one
To a target viewed clear on the sight —
Dun masses, the shells search and tear
Into fragments that bunch as they run —
For the hour of the red battle-harvest,
The dream of the slaves of the gun.
We have bartered our souls to the guns;
Every fibre of body and brain
Have we trained to them, chained to them. Serfs ?
Aye! but proud of the weight of our chain —
Of our backs that are bowed to their workings,
To hide them and guard and disguise —
Of our ears that are deafened with service,
Of hands that are scarred, and of eyes
Grown hawklike with marking their prey —
Of wings that are ripped as with swords
When we hover, the turn of a blade
From the death that is sweet to our lords.
By the ears and the eyes and the brain,
By the limbs and the hands and the wings,
We are slaves to our masters the guns . . .
But their slaves are the masters of kings.!
(Gilbert Frankau)
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