Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime…
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

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.

One cruel backhand sabre-cut—
“I'm hit! I'm killed!” young David cries,
Throws blindly forward, chokes… and dies.
Steel-helmeted and grey and grim
Goliath straddles over him.

For by Art is created that great LEVIATHAN called a COMMON-WEALTH, or STATE, (in latine CIVITAS) which is but an Artificiall Man; though of greater stature and strength than the Naturall, for whose protection and defence it was intended; and in which, the Soveraignty is an Artificiall Soul, as giving life and motion to the whole body; The Magistrates, and other Officers of Judicature and Execution, artificiall Joynts; Reward and Punishment (by which fastned to the seat of the Soveraignty, every joynt and member is moved to performe his duty) are the Nerves, that do the same in the Body Naturall; The Wealth and Riches of all the particular members, are the Strength; Salus Populi (the Peoples Safety) its Businesse; Counsellors, by whom all things needfull for it to know, are suggested unto it, are the Memory; Equity and Lawes, an artificiall Reason and Will; Concord, Health; Sedition, Sicknesse; and Civill War, Death. Lastly, the Pacts and Covenants, by which the parts of this Body Politique were at first made, set together, and united, resemble that Fiat, or the Let Us Make Man, pronounced by God in the Creation.

The chirping of sparrows could be heard from the window. The sparrows were speaking to each other in the pear tree. What a privilege it was to be woken by the sparrows and not by the siren.

I met a man, who kissed me on all of my ten thousand cheeks, and I knew then that I would know him forever.

In the immortal musings of Chris Rock, you want her to suck it as though the antidote were in it.

His eyes…

So dull, so desperate, so lonely. They looked like the life had been scratched out - ripped off. And he looked tired; so very tired. I looked closer and I thought I caught a glimpse of hope, or love, or happiness; but at once it was gone, swallowed in his sea of sorrow. I knew they had loved once, they had lived once, they had felt once. What could do this? What could drain all the tears from such young eyes? What could makes scars incapable of healing? What memories lay imbedded behind those clouded orbs?

His cracked lips were silent but he said more to me than anyone had ever done. His eyes spoke for the both of us - he had survived the war; he had died during it.