{"id":720,"date":"2016-10-06T14:07:09","date_gmt":"2016-10-06T14:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/englishlitvictorianmodern\/?post_type=chapter&p=720"},"modified":"2016-10-06T14:07:10","modified_gmt":"2016-10-06T14:07:10","slug":"dead-mans-dump","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-englishlitvictorianmodern\/chapter\/dead-mans-dump\/","title":{"raw":"Dead Man's Dump","rendered":"Dead Man’s Dump"},"content":{"raw":"

The plunging limbers[footnote]The shafts of a cart or carriage, here carrying barbed wire. See J.W. Brooke archival photos of cart and mules or horses drawing the cart. Brushwood track was necessary because of the mud.[\/footnote] over the shattered track\nRacketed with their rusty freight[footnote]Barbed wire, used to protect the trench against enemy raiders. See photo \u201cBarbed wire gate to let down to form a block against raiders.\u201d [\/footnote],\nStuck out like many crowns of thorns,\nAnd the rusty stakes like sceptres old\nTo stay the flood of brutish men\nUpon our brothers dear.\n\nThe wheels lurched over sprawled dead\nBut pained them not, though their bones crunched;\nTheir shut mouths made no moan,\nThey lie there huddled, friend and foeman,\nMan born of man, and born of woman;\nAnd shells go crying over them\nFrom night till night and now.\n\nEarth has waited for them,\nAll the time of their growth\nFretting for their decay:\nNow she has them at last!\nIn the strength of her strength\nSuspended - stopped and held.\n\nWhat fierce imaginings their dark souls lit?\nEarth! Have they gone into you?\nSomewhere they must have gone,\nAnd flung on your hard back\nIs their souls' sack,\nEmptied of God-ancestralled essences.\nWho hurled them out? Who hurled?\n\nNone saw their spirits' shadow shake the grass,\nOr stood aside for the half-used life to pass\nOut of those doomed nostrils and the doomed mouth,\nWhen the swift iron burning bee\nDrained the wild honey of their youth.\n\nWhat of us who, flung on the shrieking pyre,\nWalk, our usual thoughts untouched,\nOur lucky limbs as on ichor[footnote]The vital fluid in the veins of the gods in classical mythology.[\/footnote] fed,\nImmortal seeming ever?\nPerhaps when the flames beat loud on us,\nA fear may choke in our veins\nAnd the startled blood may stop.\n\nThe air is loud with death,\nThe dark air spurts with fire,\nThe explosions ceaseless are.\nTimelessly now, some minutes past,\nThese dead strode time with vigorous life,\nTill the shrapnel called 'An end!'\nBut not to all. In bleeding pangs\nSome borne on stretchers dreamed of home,\nDear things, war-blotted from their hearts.\n\nA man's brains splattered on\nA stretcher-bearer's face;\nHis shook shoulders slipped their load,\nBut when they bent to look again\nThe drowning soul was sunk too deep\nFor human tenderness.\n\nThey left this dead with the older dead,\nStretched at the cross roads.\nBurnt black by strange decay\nTheir sinister faces lie,\nThe lid over each eye;\nThe grass and coloured clay\nMore motion have than they,\nJoined to the great sunk silences.\n\nHere is one not long dead.\nHis dark hearing caught our far wheels,\nAnd the choked soul stretched weak hands\nTo reach the living word the far wheels said;\nThe blood-dazed intelligence beating for light,\nCrying through the suspense of the far torturing wheels\nSwift for the end to break\nOr the wheels to break,\nCried as the tide of the world broke over his sight,\n'Will they come? Will they ever come?'\nEven as the mixed hoofs of the mules,\nThe quivering-bellied mules,\nAnd the rushing wheels all mixed\nWith his tortured upturned sight.\n\nSo we crashed round the bend,\nWe heard his weak scream,\nWe heard his very last sound,\nAnd our wheels grazed his dead face.\n\nThis item is from The First World War Poetry Digital Archive, University of Oxford (https:\/\/www.oucs.ox.ac.uk\/ww1lit\/education\/tutorials\/intro\/rose); \u00a9 Poems of the First World War: 'Never Such Innocence'<\/span>, ed. Martin Stephen (Everyman, 1995)<\/cite>, p. 148-50.<\/p>","rendered":"

The plunging limbers[1]<\/sup><\/a> over the shattered track
\nRacketed with their rusty freight[2]<\/sup><\/a>,
\nStuck out like many crowns of thorns,
\nAnd the rusty stakes like sceptres old
\nTo stay the flood of brutish men
\nUpon our brothers dear.<\/p>\n

The wheels lurched over sprawled dead
\nBut pained them not, though their bones crunched;
\nTheir shut mouths made no moan,
\nThey lie there huddled, friend and foeman,
\nMan born of man, and born of woman;
\nAnd shells go crying over them
\nFrom night till night and now.<\/p>\n

Earth has waited for them,
\nAll the time of their growth
\nFretting for their decay:
\nNow she has them at last!
\nIn the strength of her strength
\nSuspended – stopped and held.<\/p>\n

What fierce imaginings their dark souls lit?
\nEarth! Have they gone into you?
\nSomewhere they must have gone,
\nAnd flung on your hard back
\nIs their souls’ sack,
\nEmptied of God-ancestralled essences.
\nWho hurled them out? Who hurled?<\/p>\n

None saw their spirits’ shadow shake the grass,
\nOr stood aside for the half-used life to pass
\nOut of those doomed nostrils and the doomed mouth,
\nWhen the swift iron burning bee
\nDrained the wild honey of their youth.<\/p>\n

What of us who, flung on the shrieking pyre,
\nWalk, our usual thoughts untouched,
\nOur lucky limbs as on ichor[3]<\/sup><\/a> fed,
\nImmortal seeming ever?
\nPerhaps when the flames beat loud on us,
\nA fear may choke in our veins
\nAnd the startled blood may stop.<\/p>\n

The air is loud with death,
\nThe dark air spurts with fire,
\nThe explosions ceaseless are.
\nTimelessly now, some minutes past,
\nThese dead strode time with vigorous life,
\nTill the shrapnel called ‘An end!’
\nBut not to all. In bleeding pangs
\nSome borne on stretchers dreamed of home,
\nDear things, war-blotted from their hearts.<\/p>\n

A man’s brains splattered on
\nA stretcher-bearer’s face;
\nHis shook shoulders slipped their load,
\nBut when they bent to look again
\nThe drowning soul was sunk too deep
\nFor human tenderness.<\/p>\n

They left this dead with the older dead,
\nStretched at the cross roads.
\nBurnt black by strange decay
\nTheir sinister faces lie,
\nThe lid over each eye;
\nThe grass and coloured clay
\nMore motion have than they,
\nJoined to the great sunk silences.<\/p>\n

Here is one not long dead.
\nHis dark hearing caught our far wheels,
\nAnd the choked soul stretched weak hands
\nTo reach the living word the far wheels said;
\nThe blood-dazed intelligence beating for light,
\nCrying through the suspense of the far torturing wheels
\nSwift for the end to break
\nOr the wheels to break,
\nCried as the tide of the world broke over his sight,
\n‘Will they come? Will they ever come?’
\nEven as the mixed hoofs of the mules,
\nThe quivering-bellied mules,
\nAnd the rushing wheels all mixed
\nWith his tortured upturned sight.<\/p>\n

So we crashed round the bend,
\nWe heard his weak scream,
\nWe heard his very last sound,
\nAnd our wheels grazed his dead face.<\/p>\n

This item is from The First World War Poetry Digital Archive, University of Oxford (https:\/\/www.oucs.ox.ac.uk\/ww1lit\/education\/tutorials\/intro\/rose); \u00a9 Poems of the First World War: ‘Never Such Innocence’<\/span>, ed. Martin Stephen (Everyman, 1995)<\/cite>, p. 148-50.<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t

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Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t
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