This letter collection is taken from the Liberation of London, starting with Chapter 16. 

Letter dated 15 September 1940 

Dear Sis: 

Well, here I am, on the train, rolling through the English countryside towards Wales and the Irish ferries that await me and my charges. It's a Tuesday afternoon, rain clouds are in the sky (when aren't rain clouds in the sky here in merry England?), hot Earl Grey is in the mug, scones with jam are on a plate. Train personnel are becoming quite accustomed to our donation of jam and sugar to bolster their food rations, so be sure to thank Tallulah a million times over for her foresight! 

The kids are finally napping after having mobbed me with pleas, wanting to open their presents. Did you ever notice children seem to know instinctively when they are going to receive presents? Ha, ha. I remember how you used to be as a tot of four when our parents would come home from a short trip to the countryside and laden with presents. How you jumped up and down, clapping your hands! 

Some of the children expressed the thought that since they were going away, people were being nice and giving presents. How could I explain the presents were not meant as a consolation prize but as nice memory to hold onto while they were living in Ireland, waiting for the war to end? 

I did stammer out an explanation, but Ian Mathewson didn't believe me, for he responded that when people want you to remember them in a nice way, they always give you presents.  

The poor child! He was a foster child of nine years of age, flitting from one home to another and the family he was living with was killed on the 7th when their home near the Docklands was destroyed. Now he finds himself going to yet another home, and this home is in a foreign country. Does that explain his reaction? Would it be possible for Ian to live with us? Could we retrieve him from Ireland at some point and bring him home to live with us permanently?  

Tallulah had a most wonderful idea of sending ahead by post to Ireland large boxes chock full of everyday items: soap, shampoo, garden seeds, tinned meat, bolts of raw cloth and so many pre-worn clothes I think the children won't have a problem with their wardrobes--even if the war lasts until 1945.  

I know there are customs restrictions on what food items can be brought into Ireland, but that wily Tallulah! She stuffed the pockets of the winter coats with the restricted items, ensuring the pockets didn't bulge.  

And on the coats, both girls' and boys, she sewed thick collars of fake fur, stuffing the collars with the money she found in the streets after the Luftwaffe dropped their silver 'presents' on us Londoners.  

She told me there was no way of knowing to whom the strewn money once belonged, but the transplanted kids needed some kind of dowry, some kind of future while they are in Ireland and a hundred pounds to each child certainly would help. 

I was instructed by Tallulah to inform each of the children what is in the collars of the coats only upon arrival at their respective farmsteads. I further instructed the children to not mention their windfall to any other child in the village, to which the children readily agreed for they didn't want their new foster parents' farms robbed for the extra cash.  

It's to be their allowance, and I am thinking it would be an excellent idea to send along every few months a small sum of pocket money to each of the children I escort. What do you think of that idea, sis? 

Tallulah is so smart at getting around the restrictions, sometimes I think she might have been a spy in one of her past lives.  

Give Tallulah my love and many thanks for the help she's provided. She certainly is a busy person, helping with the Red Cross blood drive, organizing the shopping expeditions on behalf of the children, and that idea of hers to organize Operation Take Out for the retrieval of valuables from the bombed out homes sounds marvelous!  

And speaking of Operation Take Out, I've been asked by our government to travel to Scotland to arrange for the usage of the vaults for the duration of the war. I'm afraid I can't give away too much information about where in our northern neighbor I am to temporarily reside for a few nights, for I think some information should be refrained from floating around--just in case this letter is opened and read before it reaches its destination to you. 

I do have one idea: and that is the usage of the small islands off the west coast.  

I am hoping this letter finds you well. Give my love to Rick and Alex and I shall see you shortly. 

Love,  
Jonathan 

Letter dated 17 September 1940 
  

Dear Sis: 

What a battle to get through Irish Customs! The agents are checking everybody and everything--well, nearly everything. I thought for sure they'd find the forbidden food Tallulah had hidden but the agents never caught on. Good thing I distracted the nosy dog belonging to one of the Customs Agents with a bit of leftover meat I'd saved from dinner.  

The boxes Tallulah had shipped ahead were in the postal office, safe and sound, their contents undisturbed. I did turn over some of the clothing and a bolt of raw cloth to the postal clerk when her eyes narrowed suspiciously at the children's squeals. When I handed the items to her, how her eyes shined!  

She relishes the idea of helping out clandestinely and so has agreed to help me in future endeavors. You'd like her, Sis, she reminds me of Grandmother. Besides, we need a friend in the postal office, for someone might get a tad suspicious about the extra boxes coming through on a regular basis.  

I also provided our new friend with a kilogram of tea and a kilogram of sugar. I do believe, sister dear, that we've made a life-long friend and confidant, for the price of tea and sugar is rising fast, both here in Ireland and in England and the Irish like their tea nearly as much as we do.  

After hours of tramping through the hilly Irish countryside, the children have been settled on their respective farms. The government, in its infinite wisdom, failed to provide transportation to the farms, so we ended up walking to the closest farm, about twenty kilometers from the village the ferry dropped us off in.  

The children were so brave! They each carried huge boxes full of clothes and food and such items as Tallulah sent along and not once did the children complain about the heavy load. I rigged up a kind of sledge and dragged the heaviest load, but still, after several hours, I was silently cursing the government. The one bright spot in the day literally was the sun: how the sun shines here in Ireland! 

And naturally, Tallulah and I didn't inform the government we were sending ahead a large quantity of necessary items--some of them on the list of 'forbidden foods': the tinned meats and bottles of wine for each of the farm owners. Why Ireland doesn't want tinned meat and wine to cross its borders is beyond me. Perhaps they are trying to control price gouging from people trying to make fast money.  

I know you're asking the question: Why didn't your brother Jonathan ask someone for a ride? Well, Sis, I could hardly ask for a ride from one of the Customs Agents, for the government, again in its heady wisdom, wants as few people as possible to know to where the children are being re-located, even though we are providing the necessary funds to evacuate the children. 

Apparently, the government deems its Customs employees too trivial for such knowledge but with the many hours of reflection provided by our unexpected walking tour of Ireland, I have come to the conclusion that an invading army would want to interrogate the Customs agents.  

I certainly would want to interrogate a Customs agent, were I a member of an invading army. Customs agents are the guardians of the Irish economy and the CO of an army might suppose Customs would know to where shipments of items, including human cargo, would be shipped throughout Ireland.  

Upon reaching the first farm, where Ian is to be living for the present time, the owners nearly fainted when they saw us at the top of the hill leading down to their expansive farm. They immediately despatched their lorry to haul the boxes and children to the farm, but the children--bless them!--refused the help, and with a stiff upper lip, they walked up to the front door of the farmhouse burdened as they were with Tallulah's boxes.  

At the door to the farmhouse, the children did allow themselves to be relieved of their heavy burdens, and after a loo break and a snack, they were soon happily exploring the farm, with its cows, pigs, horses, and vegetable gardens. Ian, too, liked the prospect of living on a farm for a while, for he's never been outside the city limits of London, not even to see Windsor Castle--a trip every British schoolchild should take during their tenure in the educational system. 

The children were quite excited to be given an 'allowance'--especially an allowance so big, and the farm owners agreed to dole out the cash on a bit by bit basis. At the children's requests (and all of them were in on this, mind you. What mannered children they are!), I did turn over to the farm owners--a nice young Irish couple--an extra thirty pounds from the money Tallulah found so that they may provide extra treats to their own children.  

And, sister dear, I've some news, some big news! I've decided to apply to Children's Services so that I may become a foster father to Ian. I've grown quite attached to the stoic, though skeptical, little guy over the past few days, and frankly, I can't envision my future without having Ian in that future as my child--my son.  

I'm not sure how CS will like the fact that I'm unmarried, but seeing as how it's War, and with fewer foster homes and more children needing foster care--especially when the war ends--I am of the opinion the shortly I will have the approval of CS and that either I will visit Ian here in Ireland every so often until the war ends and then bring him home, or Ian will come to live with me back in London.  

To move on in my narration, I was granted use of the farm owner's lorry to drive the other children to their destinations. Too late, I realized that I didn't pack a map but I well remember Mister Duckworth in geography class at primary school, slapping our desks with his long ruler whenever he expected an answer to his questions about the geography of Britain, Scotland and Ireland. How Mister Duckworth trained us in geography and how I hated his geography lessons!  

Well, Mister Duckworth's geography training has served me admirably, for I seem to know the Irish roads like the back of my hand. Not once did I get lost or need to ask for directions, and not once did I ever need to look at a map.  

Sis, would you do me the favor of trying to see if Mister Duckworth is still alive? I know it's a bit difficult with the blitzkreig, but I'd like to thank Mister Duckworth for his dedication in teaching such an obstinate student such as I.  

I am unsure of just when I will arrive back in London. I said I would be off to Scotland on that errand I mentioned in my earlier letter (I am on the ferry to Scotland as I write this letter). Thinking about my sorry lack of foreplanning, I will have to rely again upon Mister Duckworth's geography training to wend my way around our northern neighbor.  

I have been reading the accounts of the daily bombings in London. The foreign papers are full of commentary and the papers also say Hitler is not going to stop until he controls all of Europe. Over my bloody arse will he take London! Sorry, sis. It's the war, and my hatred for that ugly man coming out in my letter.  

Oh, one other interesting item the foreign papers carried, a blurb, really. It seems a small plane crashed in the Mediterranean sea. You don't suppose that plane was heading towards Cairo, would you? For I had the strangest dream that the Pyramids exploded but that Ardeth stopped the army in time.  

Give my love to Tallulah, Rick and Alex.  

As always,  
Love, 
Jonathan 
 
  

Once again, despite their arranging this part of my extensive travels around England, our government failed to provide adequate transportation and instead relied upon a graduate of their esteemed educational system to wend his way around Scotland on foot or by thumbing a ride.  

Having landed near Hadrian's Wall, I finagled a ride with a lorry driver for about thirteen kilometers along the Wall before we turned northwards through Gretna Green. There are advantages to traveling along the backroads, for I stayed the night in the village where William Wallace is rumoured to have been born, although the exact date and place of his birth are yet unknown.  

From the village, I was able to take a small private supply plane to my next destination and I will be able to catch a return ride all the way to Liverpool, thereby cutting my travel time back to London drastically.  

I was able to get these plane rides because the pilots needed not only the supplies I was willing to barter (the tea, all my books, all my extra clean and dry socks, my leather bomber jacket, my thick tweed coat and remaining chocolates came in quite handy and not to mention cut way down on the weight of my luggage!) but they also needed the conversation.  

So, willingly, I bartered my supplies for the plane ride.  

Nevertheless, I did manage to acquire my target relatively safely and without major hassle. The vaults are being readied and the transport of the goods to our northern neighbors is arranged.  
  
The owners of the vaults expressed surprise at the northern location our two governments chose for the storage, but I pointed out that even with permanent British Summer Time, night time in our northern neighbor comes early and anyone flying in to raid the goods would have precious little daylight in which to carry out their operations.  

Of course, we are now approaching winter and in anticipation of next summer's double British Summer Time, there is a greater opportunity for the goods to be discovered and ransacked should Hitler be successful in his endeavor to take down England.  

Whereever did our esteemed Parliament get come up with 'double British Summer Time?' Summer time itself confuses me and the double summer time order absolutely confounded my mind! Now, with fall in the air, we are back on permanent summer time. I have had ample time to wonder about Parliament--it seems that food rationing has affected their analytical abilities. 
  
I mentioned in my last letter that I was applying to Children's Services to become Ian Mathewson's foster father and I am pleased my application was accepted. The CS worker looked rather skeptical that an unmarried man of my 'years' would want to become a foster father but I assured her that I was quite willing, after having helped raise Alex.  

And I am not so old, am I? I certainly don't think so, but when one approaches the age at which one expects to live as many years in the future that they have lived in the past, one tends to reflect more upon their mortality.  

As soon as I've posted this letter, I shall be off in a private plane towards that industrial city of Liverpool, the pilot wearing my bomber jacket. It looks rather striking on him, if I say so myself.  

I am expecting, barring extreme circumstances, to be back in London by the end of September, in time for the next transport of children to the Irish countryside. I apologize if there isn't much time to spend with you in between trips to evacuate the children, sister dear, and that is the reason for my rather extensive letters.  

I am running short on writing paper, and I shall have need of you to purchase several reams of writing paper for me, and if you would so kindly arrange it, you would please me greatly. But as I am nearing the end of this round of traveling, I can make do with a greatly reduced stack of writing paper. It does lighten my load a lot, and my weary arms are thanking me greatly!  

As I hear the pilot--another Jonathan by name, Jonathan Wilkes-- shouting at me to 'get my arse in gear' I shall end this letter with my usual words,  

Always much love,  
Jonathan 

Early October. Letter from Jonathan, lying on the table at the farmhouse where Ian Mathewson is staying. Jonathan is preparing an envelope to post to his sister  

Dear Sis,  
  
The English folk never cease to amaze me. As I traveled for the third time across rainy England to relatively sunny Ireland (and I've big news later on in this letter), the children and I were watching from the train windows the English country folk prepare an amazingly large load of supplies.  

Several people who boarded the now-infrequent passenger train to Wales told us the legend is going around western England that King Arthur would be arriving in London to liberate the beseiged city, and that King Arthur would be the recipient of all the supplies he would need: food as well as young men and women ready to help with paper work, Red Cross, whatever needs to be done.  

I presume the English countryfolk are meaning Ardeth, who apparently has arrived in England safely, and that Arthur is the English pronunciation of his name. I have to comment that I am rather pleased to know King Arthur will be assisting us--I will try to avoid having him move stones this time around!  

You will be pleased to know that our compatriots in the countryside are sending along fresh vegetables, fresh chickens (keep some on the estate!), eggs, and something we've not had in a long time: cheddar cheese. Yes, the small town of Cheddar will be sending along to London thousands of wheels of cheese (both ripe and unripe; and the unripened wheels can be stored in your wine cellar until they are ready)--all by horse power provided for by the Cornish natives.  

To move on, Irish Customs was its usual pleasant self. Missing their dogs, and bringing man's best friend to work with them, more of the Agents' dogs are sniffing the arriving luggage, much to the dismay of the owners. The Agents don't seem to understand that the dogs' noses can smell food hidden in secret compartments and that the dogs' insistent pawing and barking at luggage which has already been inspected means that there is something edible hidden in a secret compartment.  

Leave it to the dogs to sniff out something edible! I suppose they are hungry too, for with food rationing, the dogs also get less to eat. I had thought of that, and brought along a few dozen bags of dried dog food, which I gave to the Customs agents. Surprised, and pleased, they opened a bag and fed the dogs, who left my luggage alone!  

The last shipment of boxes that our beloved Tallulah sent ahead before she passed on was awaiting me at the post office. Our newest friend was more than pleased to hide the boxes for us. It appears that my earlier worries that someone might nose around at a large quantity of boxes being shipped to the same postal office and grow suspicious were bang on.  

Five kilograms of tea this time around has more than bought the eternal gratitude of our lady friend. I tallied up the amount of tea Tallulah has stored in one of the old wine cellars.  
Over three hundred kilograms of tea! For how long was she purchasing tea? With that quantity, Tallulah must have been going to and fro to the tea merchants for several years.  

She must have thought we would need to feed an army, but with the blitz and the depressed economy, I suppose if necessary, we could barter the tea for whatever other supplies we need.  

This time around to Ireland, I was prepared and had a lorry waiting for me to drive the children and their boxes full of necessities to their various destinations. Despite being separated from their parents, the children seem to be happy to be in Ireland--away from the daily bombings, the air raid drills, the long nights packed tighter in the bomb shelters than they would be had they been packed into a sardine can.  

The fresh air, the smells of the farm, and passing hour after hour without hearing the squeal as bombs drop from the underbelly of a Messerschmitt seem to have improved the dispositions of even the most irascible of the children.  

And naturally, word going around London that the children Jonathan Carnahan escorts to the countryside will receive presents of chocolate, socks, and games had my latest charges pestering me for their presents even before the train left the station. I do hope, sister dear, that we will not run out of games, or socks, or chocolates, for the transported children would be sorely disappointed!  

After I had seen the last of the children to their foster parents, I returned back to the farm where I had left Ian Mathewson on my first trip to Ireland. Sister dear, this is the big news I alluded to at the beginning of my letter!  

Children's Services has approved me as a foster father to Ian, with the very potential possibilty of my becoming his adoptive parent! I was to relay the official letter to Ian in person, to gauge his reaction. I admit, I was at a loss for words when the CS worker informed me I was to be a foster father. Their turnaround time on my application was absolutely astounding!  

I am sorry, sis, that I didn't tell you the news before I left London this last time around. I was afraid that, somehow, the news wasn't true and I sorely needed time to digest the news.  

During the train ride, and between being amazed at the industrious English country folk and the children, I was distracted a lot and tried to figure out a way to let Ian know he is to have me as a foster father. But I had no need to worry, Ian was more than pleased to know that I was to be his foster father but, in his words, "Dad, can I stay here at the farm for a while longer? I don't like the sound of the bombs over London."  

He called me 'dad' straight away. Ian told me that the time I spent talking with him on the trip over to Ireland was the most time anyone had ever spent with him in his entire life. He'd been sorely wanting to stay on with me. He showed me a letter he had written to me but hadn't sent because he was scared of being rejected. And in his letter, he told me he wished I could be his foster father.  

His wish--and mine--came true.  

Ian wants to remain on the farm and I think that's a splendid idea. The owners have two children of their own but not nearly enough farm help, for with the war, most of the young men have left their villages to sign up.  

The work isn't too strenuous, for CS sees to it the children are not turned into free farm help, but there are farm chores that the children can do (milking and mucking and such), and knowing that the vegetables they're picking, washing and packing are going to London cheers the children and gives them self-confidence. 
  
The sun, and the extra food have transformed my new foster son--and the three other foster kids--into healthy, happy children inside of a few short weeks, and I want Ian--and the other kids--to remain that way.  

I shall be staying on the farm a few  weeks, to get the most time with Ian; I was only scheduled for three trips but should the need arise to evacuate more children, I am only a telegram away.  

And as always, I remain,  
Your loving brother,  
Jonathan 

Letter dated 20 October 1940 
  

Dear Sis,  

My last letter failed to relate an event which occurred in our northern neighbor and there simply was not enough time to relate the event to you during my brief stay back in London. I trust you are satisfied with my letters, which I enjoy writing. 
  
After arranging for the vaults, I had a most unusual meeting in a pub--the poet Hugh MacDiarmid (the pen name of Christopher Murray Grieve) and he and I struck up a friendship over mash and bangers. All right, I admit I ordered the mash and bangers while Hugh--a true Scotsman indeed--dived into a bowl of haggis!  

The bashed neeps were rather good, though, and I consumed two bowls in exchange for more of my tea.  

Really, sister dear, the government rations two ounces of tea per person per week! No wonder I made fast friends by exchanging tea and other sundries for services! I know I have made previous mention of Tallulah's enormous stockpile of food, clothing and supplies, but until I traveled several times by train through England, I didn't fully realize the full effects of the government's rather stringent per-person weekly rationing.  

Dear, sweet Tallulah! How much better we can help those made homeless by the Luftwaffe with the supplies she stockpiled!  

Moving on, I've enclosed a copy of a chapbook of Hugh's which he presented to me. The poems are written in Scots but with your ability in languages, I trust you'll be able to decipher Scots and translate the poems.  

Despite the daily bombardment of London, the plane ride to Liverpool was rather uneventful, although I had the scariest vision that a line of Messerschmidts would appear on the horizon, flying towards us, our tiny plane in their sights and the Germans would be ready to shoot Jonathan and Jonathan down over the English heaths.  

Irish air is quite beneficial to the children, who grow more hale and hearty with each passing day. The fresh air ruddies their cheeks and their eyes smile as we've always heard how Irish eyes smile.  

I watch the children, who, for the present time, laugh at seeing ruminants grazing alongside the rural lanes, and shout out their amazement upon seeing a dolmen or the ruins of an ancient castle. Their laughter rings out as they play, and I grow sad.  
  
Their childhoods (and parents) have been cruelly stolen from them and once again you and I (along with the rest of the world) have to bear witness to the ravages of another war. This is no "Phoney War" (oh! but how we could use another period of inactivity again!) but a manifestation of the horrors their uncles and elder brothers told around the fireside about the trenches and mustard gas.  

We ourselves had barely recovered from the first war when the winds of war were once again loosed and another generation of children are torn from the safety of their childhood and thrust into a forced adulthood.  

In that sense, I am glad the Irish air is doing the children well and once again they can believe they are children, if only for a short while, for when they return to London, no matter what their ages, they will be forced to grow up sooner rather than later. Such are the invisible casualties of war upon the human race.  

The children express concern for those youngsters left behind in London, for they hear the radio reports about the continuing daily bombing by the Luftwaffe. Being separated from their parents and all that they knew and being thrust into a foreign country unwillingly will undoubtedly take an emotional toll.  

They are also feeling a bit of awe, for many of the children from London proper lived in cold water flats and rarely made it down to the council baths once a week to bathe in hot water. And in Ireland, hot water gushes from the taps. How the children squeal when they have daily hot baths!  

Irish farming folk have developed quite the communications system for relaying the news to those folks not lucky enough to own a radio. To encourage exercise (not to mention sightseeing, and Ireland has castles galore), and each of the children gets a turn going round to the farms every few days carrying a 'newspaper' containing news on London, the war ("history in the making" the children tell me and they finished by saying "they need to know what happens so it may never happen again").  

And the children, especially Irene Dunne, in the absence of regular library time, have developed an affiinity for making up stories and plays, which they enact in their own 'theatre'--unsuitably located in a windswept barn (I must make better arrangements for them if they are going to continue putting on plays, for winter is fast approching).  

Irene is turning into quite the young writer and back in England, I shall have to find some outlets for her writing else her creativity will wither and she will end up stamping her feet in frustration.  

There is a dearth of writers in this, the second world war, and the reason, I suspect, is that our young men (and women!) of capable talent are being sent off to the front lines. I am keen to encourage Irene's nascent talent, for I shall have need of a good tale to read in my old age, when Ian's children are warm in their beds and, after a day of work, then caring for rambunctious children, Ian himself will have nodded off in front of the fireplace.  

With that thought, I am reminded of the first stanza of Yeats' "When You are Old":  

When you are old and grey and full of sleep  
and nodding by the fire, take down this book  
and slowly read, and dream of the soft look  
your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep.  

Gaelic is still spoken here and there in the rural countryside of Ireland and learning a new language seems to suit the children and takes their minds off the Luftwaffe. Basic greetings in Gaelic befuddle me, but the children's young minds have allowed them to hold a simple conversation after just a few weeks in Ireland. Sister, dear! Now is the time I wish I possessed your ability with languages!  

Ian is doing wonderfully and he and I have grown quite attached to each other. He's settled down quite a bit and is not so stoic and angry. He has developed a bit of a mischievous streak and is constantly pulling practical jokes on me and any other unsuspecting person who may have the misfortune of being around when he gets a prank into his head.  

I think that knowing he has a permanent home with someone who's interested in him as a person instead of as a boarder has calmed him substantially.  

A fresh, young intelligent mind he possesses and he uses it at every opportunity, quizzing me about our parents, my travels in Egypt and his memory is astounding!  He is especially interested in the fact you and I are half-Egyptian.  

It appears that Ian, like a good many people, is fascinated in all things Ancient Egyptian. So sister dear, I must ask you to write down myths and poems and the what not that you remember from Neferteri's lifetime so my Ian can read and slake his thirst for things Ancient Egyptian.  

I've yet to relay to Ian the news about your past life as Neferteri. I am not quite sure how he'll accept that news, nor have I relayed to him about the events with Imhotep and Ancksunamun out in the Egyptian Sahara all those years ago.  

There are times when I myself can hardly believe that Alex used a spell from the Book of the Dead to resurrect you. Sitting there with Alex, after Ancksunamun stabbed you, I was at a loss for emotions. How does one accept the fact he has just witnessed his only sister being stabbed to death?  

For Alex's sake, I kept the proverbial stiff upper lip but I am truly relieved that Alex kept his mind and used "the Book" as he likes to say, and resurrected you, sister dear.  

And speaking of Egypt, I have had dreams that I can not remember upon awakening, but something tells me I need to return to England--to London--shortly. Ian is rather sad that I will be leaving him for a time, but he is mollified greatly (read: highly enthusiastic!) by the fact that his new foster aunt not only lived in Egypt but knows all things Ancient Egyptian.  

And Ian has instructed me to bring back books on Ancient Egypt, and especially books about King Tut. Ah! Along with the rest of the English population, he shares the still-raging fascination for King Tut.  

Does Tut's tomb ever end?  

I remain, your loving brother,  
Jonathan  

ps-- while rummaging in a village antiques store a few days ago, I found three pamphlets, the first of which was written nearly 30 years ago, by an older acquaintance of mine: Issac Rosenberg. This particular poem was published in 1922, four years after he died on the battle lines (April 1, 1918).  

Break of Day in the Trenches  

The darkness crumbles away,  
It is the same old druid Time as ever,  
Only a live thing leaps my hand,  
A queer sardonic rat,  
As I pull the parapet's poppy  
To stick behind my ear.  

Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew  
Your cosmopolitan sympathies.  

Now you have touched this English hand  
You will do the same to a German  
Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure  
To cross the sleeping green between.  
It seems you inwardly grin as you pass  
Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes,  
Less chanced than you for life,  
Bonds to the whims of murder,  
Sprawled in the bowels of the earth,  
The torn fields of France.  

What do you see in our eyes  
At the shrieking iron and flame  
Hurled through still heavens?  
What quaver--what heart aghast?  
Poppies whose roots are in man's veins  
Drop, and are ever dropping;  
But mine in my ear is safe--  
Just a little white with dust.