Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us . . 

Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent . . 

Low drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient . . 

Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous

But nothing happens

Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire

Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles

Northward, incessantly, the flickering gunnery rumbles

Far off, likе a dull rumour of some other war

What are wе doing here?

Pale flakes with fingering stealth come feeling for our faces—

We cringe in holes, back on forgotten dreams, and stare, snow-dazed

Deep into grassier ditches. So we drowse, sun-dozed

Littered with blossoms trickling where the blackbird fusses

—Is it that we are dying?

Tonight, this frost will fasten on this mud and us

Shrivelling many hands, and puckering foreheads crisp

The burying-party, picks and shovels in shaking grasp

Pause over half-known faces. All their eyes are ice

But nothing happens

Nothing happens

Nothing happens

Nothing happens

Nothing happens