There are strange Hells within the minds War made <br />Not so often, not so humiliating afraid <br />As one would have expected - the racket and fear guns made. <br /> <br />One Hell the Gloucester soldiers they quite put out; <br />Their first bombardment, when in combined black shout <br />Of fury, guns aligned, they ducked low their heads <br />And sang with diaphragms fixed beyond all dreads, <br />That tin and stretched-wire tinkle, that blither of tune; <br />'Apres la guerre fini' till Hell all had come down, <br />Twelve-inch, six-inch, and eighteen pounders hammering Hell's thunders. <br /> <br />Where are they now on State-doles, or showing shop patterns <br />Or walking town to town sore in borrowed tatterns <br />Or begged. Some civic routine one never learns. <br />The heart burns - but has to keep out of face how heart burns.<br /><br />Ivor Gurney<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/strange-hells/
