My soul, dread not the pestilence that hags <br />The valley; flinch not you, my body young. <br />At these great shouting smokes and snarling jags <br />Of fiery iron; as yet may not be flung <br />The dice that claims you. Manly move among <br />These ruins, and what you must do, do well; <br />Look, here are gardens, there mossed boughs are hung <br />With apples who bright cheeks none might excel, <br />And there's a house as yet unshattered by a shell. <br /> <br />"I'll do my best," the soul makes sad reply, <br />"And I will mark the yet unmurdered tree, <br />The tokens of dear homes that court the eye, <br />And yet I see them not as I would see. <br />Hovering between, a ghostly enemy. <br />Sickens the light, and poisoned, withered, wan, <br />The least defiled turns desperate to me." <br />The body, poor unpitied Caliban, <br />Parches and sweats and grunts to win the name of Man. <br /> <br />Days or eternities like swelling waves <br />Surge on, and still we drudge in this dark maze; <br />The bombs and coils and cans by strings of slaves <br />Are borne to serve the coming day of days; <br />Pale sleep in slimy cellars scarce allays <br />With its brief blank the burden. Look, we lose; <br />The sky is gone, the lightless, drenching haze <br />Of rainstorms chills the bone; earth, air are foes, <br />The black fiend leaps brick-red as life's last picture goes.<br /><br />Edmund Blunden<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/preparations-for-victory/
