In me the tiger sniffs the rose.
In me the tiger sniffs the rose.
Man, it seemed, had been created to jab the life out of Germans.
O Christ, and what's the good?
Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin they think of firelit homes, clean beds, and wives.
You love us when we're heroes, home on leave,
Or wounded in a mentionable place.
I too have longed for children.
By God, it might be Heaven!
The song was wordless; The singing will never be done.
I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers.
Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land, drawing no dividend from time's tomorrows.
I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed.
I believe that this War, on which I entered as a war of defence and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest.
And when the war is done and youth stone dead; I'd toddle safely home and die - in bed.
His most rational response to my attempts at drawing him out about literature and art was 'I adore italics, don't you'
The sun looks over the barrack gate,
Warm and white with glaring shine,
To watch the soldiers of the Line
That life has hired to fight with fate.
He was beside me now, as swift as light.
Does it matter - losing your legs For people will always be kind.
I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust.
My dreaming spirit will not heed
The roar of guns that would destroy
My life that on the gloom can read
Proud-surging melodies of joy.
O Jesus, make it stop!
O thrilling sweet, my joy, when life was free
And all the paths led on from hawthorn-time
Across the carolling meadows into June.
Keep smiling then, old son.
Well, how are things in Heaven?
Love drove me to rebel.
I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the War is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it.
And life is just the picture dancing on a screen.
If I were fierce and bald and short of breath, I'd live with scarlet Majors at the Base, And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
I believe that the purpose for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation.
Yet these, who cling to life with stubborn hands,
Can grin through storms of death and find a gap
In the clawed, cruel tangles of his defence.
What greater glory could a man desire?
What mercy can He give you?
In wild and secret happiness we stumbled;
And gods and demons clamoured in our senses.
In the stark
Danger of life at war, they lie so still,
All prostrate and defenceless, head by head.
'O Christ, they're coming at us!
© 2020 Inspirational Stories
© 2020 Inspirational Stories