Poem - Oscar Walters

Shrapnel Green

By Oscar Walters

Do you remember on Shrapnel Green,

On that far-off bitter November day,

When the snow lay thick, and the wind blew keen,

And the blanketed dead in a lone row lay.

When your gaze went over the tireless sea,

Where rode the monitors, grey and grim,

The words you said when you turned to me.

With voice grown husky, and eyes grown dim?

You watched for a moment a ’plane’s swift climb,

And you said, as a great gun belched its flame:

“Surely to Jesus there’ll be a time

When men won’t come at this bloody game!”

Have you forgotten the words you spoke,

When the dead in their blankets lay very still,

The words you said in a voice that broke—

With a monitor searching for "Beachy Bill,"

And Imbros rising above the sea,

A fast ’plane sliding across the sky;

To the left a rattle of musketry,

And we poor fools in a world awry,

Pausing awhile in our bitter task

To wonder vainly what it could mean?

Have you forgotten, old mate, I ask,

The prayer you uttered on Shrapnel Green?

Did you catch a gleam from a vanished age?

Did you hear an echo from other years?

Did you catch a murmur of ancient rage,

And see sad eyes that were dim with tears?

Did you Bee men light for an ancient wrong,

As men would fight in the years to come?

Did you see the galleys and hear the song

Of victors homing from Ilium?

What had you seen when you turned to me?

Whence came the prayer that I heard you say,

When your gaze went over the old, old sea,

On that far-off, bitter November day?

To Shrapnel Green there has come once more

The quiet dreams that the great guns broke;

Men have returned to the ways of yore,

But one remembers the words you spoke,

With a monitor shelling along the right,

And shrapnel bursting above Lone Pine,

And the shell-torn Green ’neath its pall of white,

And the blanketed dead in a long, still line.

I know not whither your path has led,

Your name’s forgotten, but this I know:

The world has need of the prayer you said

On Shrapnel Green in the long ago.