I wandered up to Beaucourt; I took the river track <br />And saw the lines we lived in before the Boche went back; <br />But Peace was now in Pottage, the front was far ahead, <br />The front had journeyed Eastward, and only left the dead. <br />And I thought, how long we lay there, and watched across the wire, <br />While guns roared round the valley, and set the skies afire! <br />But now there are homes in Hamel and tents in the Vale of Hell, <br />And a camp at suicide corner, where half a regiment fell. <br />The new troops follow after, and tread the land we won, <br />To them 'tis so much hill-side re-wrested from the Hun <br />We only walk with reverence this sullen mile of mud <br />The shell-holes hold our history, and half of them our blood. <br />Here, at the head of Peche Street, 'twas death to show your face, <br />To me it seemed like magic to linger in the place; <br />For me how many spirits hung around the Kentish Caves, <br />But the new men see no spirits-they only see the graves. <br />I found the half-dug ditches we fashioned for the fight, <br />We lost a score of men there-young James was killed that night, <br />I saw the star shells staring, I heard the bullets hail, <br />But the new troops pass unheeding-they never heard the tale. <br />I crossed the blood red ribbon, that once was no-man's land, <br />I saw a misty daybreak and a creeping minute-hand; <br />And here the lads went over, and there was Harmsworth shot, <br />And here was William lying-but the new men know them not. <br />And I said, 'There is still the river, and still the stiff, stark trees, <br />To treasure here our story, but there are only these'; <br />But under the white wood crosses the dead men answered low, <br />' The new men know not Beaucourt, but we are here-we know.'<br /><br />A. P. Herbert<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/beaucourt-revisited/
