Robert Graves (1895–1985). Fairies and Fusiliers. 1918.

45. 1915

I’VE watched the Seasons passing slow, so slow,

In the fields between La Bassée and Bethune;

Primroses and the first warm day of Spring,

Red poppy floods of June,

August, and yellowing Autumn, so

To Winter nights knee-deep in mud or snow,

And you’ve been everything.

Dear, you’ve been everything that I most lack

In these soul-deadening trenches—pictures, books,

Music, the quiet of an English wood,

Beautiful comrade-looks,

The narrow, bouldered mountain-track,

The broad, full-bosomed ocean, green and black,

And Peace, and all that’s good.