Marching

 

Patrick MacGill (1889-1963) was an Irish journalist, poet and novelist. He served in the London Irish Rifles during the war. He also has that strange distinction he shares with another fine poet, C.S. Lewis, of dying on the same day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

 

Soldiers did a lot of marching, but it was often a death march. MacGill simply recalled his experiences and called this poem, "Marching":

 

“Four by four, in column of route,

By roads that the poplars sentinel,

Clank of rifle and crunch of boot –

All are marching and all is well.

White, so white is the distant moon,

Salmon-pink is the furnace glare

And we hum, as we march, a ragtime tune,

Khaki boys in the long platoon,

Ready for anything – anywhere.

 

Lonely and still the village lies,

The houses sleep and the blinds are drawn,

The road is straight as the bullet flies,

And we go marching into the dawn;

Salmon-pink is the furnace sheen.

Where the coal stacks bulk in the ghostly air

The long platoons on the move are seen,

Little connecting files between,

Moving and moving, anywhere.”

 

Done