Bombardment - Richard Aldington

[Seadog]

WW1 Trench scene at Bovington Tank Museum

The battlefield at the top is an addition.

Poem by Richard Aldington

Bombardment

Four days the earth was rent and torn

By bursting steel,

The houses fell about us;

Three nights we dared not sleep,

Sweating, and listening for the immanent crash

Which meant our death.

The fourth night every man,

Nerve-tortured, racked to exhaustion

Slept, muttering and twitching,

While the shells crashed overhead.

The fifth day there came a hush;

We left out holes

And looked above the wreckage of the earth

To where the white clouds moved in silent lines

Across the untroubled blue.