This is a quiet sector of a quiet front. <br /> <br />We buried Ruiz in a new pine coffin, <br />But the shroud was too small and his washed feet stuck out. <br />The stink of his corpse came through the clean pine boards <br />And some of the bearers wrapped handkerchiefs round their faces. <br />Death was not dignified. <br />We hacked a ragged grave in the unfriendly earth <br />And fired a ragged volley over the grave. <br /> <br />You could tell from our listlessness, no one much missed him. <br /> <br />This is a quiet sector of a quiet front. <br />There is no poison gas and no H. E. <br /> <br />But when they shelled the other end of the village <br />And the streets were choked with dust <br />Women came screaming out of the crumbling houses, <br />Clutched under one arm the naked rump of an infant. <br />I thought: how ugly fear is. <br /> <br />This is a quiet sector of a quiet front. <br />Our nerves are steady; we all sleep soundly. <br /> <br />In the clean hospital bed, my eyes were so heavy <br />Sleep easily blotted out one ugly picture, <br />A wounded militiaman moaning on a stretcher, <br />Now out of danger, but still crying for water, <br />Strong against death, but unprepared for such pain. <br /> <br />This on a quiet front. <br /> <br />But when I shook hands to leave, an Anarchist worker <br />Said: 'Tell the workers of England <br />This was a war not of our own making <br />We did not seek it. <br />But if ever the Fascists again rule Barcelona <br />It will be as a heap of ruins with us workers beneath it.' <br /> <br /> <br />Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.<br /><br />Rupert John Cornford<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-letter-from-aragon/
