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The darkness crumbles away—
It is the same old druid Time as ever.
Only a living thing leaps my hand—
A queer sardonic rat—
As I pull the parapet's poppy
To stick behind my ear.

[…]

Poppies whose roots are in man's veins
Drop, and are ever dropping;
But mine in my ear is safe,
Just a little white with the dust.

#37
from "Break of Day in the Trenches (fragment)"
by Isaac Rosenberg