If poetry serves any purpose it is to reveal the feelings, thoughts and understanding of men.
War is terrible.
In the First World War it became industrial. Life and death was not so much a game of skill as a lottery. It was murder plain.
Nations sent their young men to be blown to smithereens or return mentally deranged forever. All who practice in the art of brutality are victims.
Attack
At dawn the ridge emerges massed and dun
In the wild purple of the glow’ring sun,
Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud
The menacing scarred slope; and, one by one,
Tanks creep and topple forward to the wire.
The barrage roars and lifts. Then, clumsily bowed
With bombs and guns and shovels and battle-gear,
Men jostle and climb to, meet the bristling fire.
Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear,
They leave their trenches, going over the top,
While time ticks blank and busy on their wrists,
And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists,
Flounders in mud. O Jesus, make it stop!