In the bleak midwinter frosty wind made moan <br />As did those who were injured and dying <br />Slumped unceremoniously in mud-filled trenches <br />Craving for the warmth of a home-fire burning <br />But there was none <br /> <br />Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone <br />And fingers, numb of feeling like brittle twigs <br />Twisted at the end of slowly rotting branches. <br />Delicate precision lost <br />Unable to caress or soothe <br />Now locked and cramped around a trigger <br /> <br />Snow had fallen, snow on snow <br />A masquerade of beauty. <br />A whitewashed sepulchre encapsulating bodies <br />In burial robes which once marched proudly <br />On summers' days <br /> <br />That it should come to this; <br />Trees in full prime stripped of life <br />Youthful buds trodden underfoot <br />And lost forever in the bleak midwinter <br />Long ago<br /><br />Bob Oldfield<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/christmas-1916/
