# Break of Day

There seemed a smell of autumn in the air

At the bleak end of night; he shivered there

In a dank, musty dug-out where he lay,

Legs wrapped in sand-bags,—lumps of chalk and clay

Spattering his face. Dry-mouthed, he thought, “To-day

We start the damned attack; and, Lord knows why,

Zero’s at nine; how bloody if I’m done in

Under the freedom of that morning sky!”

And then he coughed and dozed, cursing the din.

Was it the ghost of autumn in that smell

Of underground, or God’s blank heart grown kind,

That sent a happy dream to him in hell?—

Where men are crushed like clods, and crawl to find

Some crater for their wretchedness; who lie

In outcast immolation, doomed to die

Far from clean things or any hope of cheer,

Cowed anger in their eyes, till darkness brims

And roars into their heads, and they can hear

Old childish talk, and tags of foolish hymns.

He sniffs the chilly air; (his dreaming starts).

He’s riding in a dusty Sussex lane

In quiet September; slowly night departs;

And he’s a living soul, absolved from pain.

Beyond the brambled fences where he goes

Are glimmering fields with harvest piled in sheaves,

And tree-tops dark against the stars grown pale;

Then, clear and shrill, a distant farm-cock crows;

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