Apologia pro Poemate Meo

Apologia pro Poemate Meo (in Short Poetry Collection 090 )I, too, saw God through mud,—⁠The mud that cracked on cheeks when wretches smiled.⁠War brought more glory to their eyes than blood,⁠And gave their laughs more glee than shakes a child.Merry it was to laugh there—⁠Where death becomes absurd and life absurder.⁠For power was on us as we slashed bones bare⁠Not to feel sickness or remorse of murder.I, too, have dropped off Fear—⁠Behind the barrage, dead as my platoon,⁠And sailed my spirit surging, light and clear⁠Past the entanglement where hopes lay strewn;And witnessed exultation—⁠Faces that used to curse me, scowl for scowl,⁠Shine and lift up with passion of oblation,⁠Seraphic for an hour; though they were foul.I have made fellowships—⁠Untold of happy lovers in old song.⁠For love is not the binding of fair lips⁠With the soft silk of eyes that look and long,By Joy, whose ribbon slips,—⁠But wound with war's hard wire whose stakes are strong;⁠Bound with the bandage of the arm that drips;⁠Knit in the webbing of the rifle-thong.I have perceived much beauty⁠In the hoarse oaths that kept our courage straight;⁠Heard music in the silentness of duty;⁠Found peace where shell-storms spouted reddest spate.Nevertheless, except you share⁠With them in hell the sorrowful dark of hell,⁠Whose world is but the trembling of a flare,⁠And heaven but as the highway for a shell,You shall not hear their ⁠You shall not come to think them well content⁠By any jest of mine. These men are w