Prep UK Poetry

The pockets of our greatcoats full of barley... No kitchens on the run, no striking camp... We moved quick and sudden in our own country. The priest lay behind ditches with the tramp. A people hardly marching... on the hike... We found new tactics happening each day: We'd cut through reins and rider with the pike And stampede cattle into infantry, Then retreat through hedges where cavalry must be thrown. Until... on Vinegar Hill... the final conclave. Terraced thousands died, shaking scythes at cannon. The hillside blushed, soaked in our broken wave. They buried us without shroud or coffin And in August... the barley grew up out of our grave.

Between my finger and my thumb    The squat pen rests; snug as a gun. Under my window, a clean rasping sound    When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:    My father, digging. I look down Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds    Bends low, comes up twenty years away    Stooping in rhythm through potato drills    Where he was digging. The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft    Against the inside knee was levered firmly. He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep To scatter new potatoes that we picked, Loving their cool hardness in our hands. By God, the old man could handle a spade.    Just like his old man. My grandfather cut more turf in a day Than any other man on Toner’s bog. Once I carried him milk in a bottle Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up To drink it, then fell to right away Nicking and slicing neatly, heav...

Holiday squeals, as if all were scrambling for their lives, Panting aboard the “Cornish Riviera”. Then overflow of relief and luggage and children, Then duckling to smile out as the station moves. Out there on the platform, under the rain, Under his rain-cape, helmet and full pack, Somebody, head bowed reading something, Doesn’t know he’s missing his train. He’s completely buried in that book. He’s forgotten utterly where he is. He’s forgotten Paddington, forgotten Timetables, forgotten the long, rocking Cradle of a journey into the golden West, The coach’s soft wingbeat – as light And straight as a dove’s flight. Like a graveyard statue sentry cast In blackened bronze. Is he reading poems? A letter? The burial service? The raindrops Beaded along his helmet rim are bronze. The words on his page are bronze. Their meanings bronze. Sunk in his bronze world he stands, enchanted. His bronze mind is deep among the dead. Sunk so deep among the...

I The straggled soldier halted -- stared at Him -- Then clumsily dumped down upon his knees, Gasping "O blessed crucifix, I'm beat !" And Christ, still sentried by the seraphim, Near the front-line, between two splintered trees, Spoke him: "My son, behold these hands and feet." The soldier eyed him upward, limb by limb, Paused at the Face, then muttered, "Wounds like these Would shift a bloke to Blighty just a treat !" Christ, gazing downward, grieving and ungrim, Whispered, "I made for you the mysteries, Beyond all battles moves the Paraclete." II The soldier chucked his rifle in the dust, And slipped his pack, and wiped his neck, and said -- "O Christ Almighty, stop this bleeding fight !" Above that hill the sky was stained like rust With smoke. In sullen daybreak flaring red The guns were thundering bombardment's blight. The soldier cried, "I was born full of lust, With hunger, thirst, ...

Thought to have been written between 8 October 1917   and March, 1918 Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares(2) we turned our backs And towards our distant rest(3) began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots(4)   Of tired, outstripped(5) Five-Nines(6) that dropped behind. Gas!(7) Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets(8) just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime(9) . . . Dim, through the misty panes(10) and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering,(11) choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung ...

https://nationalpoetryday.co.uk/poems/change-poems/