Fetching The Wounded Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDAAAAEEFFGGHH AAIICCJJKKLLMMAA NNAAOOPPKQAARRSSTTUU VVWSXXAAYYAAAAAARRAA YYAAYYZZRRAt the road's end glimmer the station lights | A |
How small beneath the immense hollow of Night's | A |
Lonely and living silence Air that raced | B |
And tingled on the eyelids as we faced | B |
The long road stretched between the poplars flying | C |
To the dark behind us shuddering and sighing | C |
With phantom foliage lapses into hush | D |
Magical supersession The loud rush | D |
Swims into quiet midnight reassumes | A |
Its solitude there's nothing but great glooms | A |
Blurred stars whispering gusts the hum of wires | A |
And swerving leftwards upon noiseless tires | A |
We glide over the grass that smells of dew | E |
A wave of wonder bathes my body through | E |
For there in the headlamps' gloom surrounded beam | F |
Tall flowers spring before us like a dream | F |
Each luminous little green leaf intimate | G |
And motionless distinct and delicate | G |
With powdery white bloom fresh upon the stem | H |
As if that clear beam had created them | H |
Out of the darkness Never so intense | A |
I felt the pang of beauty's innocence | A |
Earthly and yet unearthly A sudden call | I |
We leap to ground and I forget it all | I |
Each hurries on his errand lanterns swing | C |
Dark shapes cross and re cross the rails we bring | C |
Stretchers and pile and number them and heap | J |
The blankets ready Then we wait and keep | J |
A listening ear Nothing comes yet all's still | K |
Only soft gusts upon the wires blow shrill | K |
Fitfully with a gentle spot of rain | L |
Then ere one knows it the long gradual train | L |
Creeps quietly in and slowly stops No sound | M |
But a few voices' interchange Around | M |
Is the immense night stillness the expanse | A |
Of faint stars over all the wounds of France | A |
- | |
Now stale odour of blood mingles with keen | N |
Pure smell of grass and dew Now lantern sheen | N |
Falls on brown faces opening patient eyes | A |
And lips of gentle answers where each lies | A |
Supine upon his stretcher black of beard | O |
Or with young cheeks on caps and tunics smeared | O |
And stained white bandages round foot or head | P |
Or arm discoloured here and there with red | P |
Sons of all corners of wide France from Lille | K |
Douay the land beneath the invader's heel | Q |
Champagne Touraine the fisher villages | A |
Of Brittany the valleyed Pyrenees | A |
Blue coasts of the South old Paris streets Argonne | R |
Of ever smouldering battle that anon | R |
Leaps furious brothered them in arms They fell | S |
In the trenched forest scarred with reeking shell | S |
Now strange the sound comes round them in the night | T |
Of English voices By the wavering light | T |
Quickly we have borne them one by one to the air | U |
And sweating in the dark lift up with care | U |
Tense sinewed each to his place The cars at last | V |
Complete their burden slowly and then fast | V |
We glide away And the dim round of sky | W |
Infinite and silent broods unseeingly | S |
Over the shadowy uplands rolling black | X |
Into far woods and the long road we track | X |
Bordered with apparitions as we pass | A |
Of trembling poplars and lamp whitened grass | A |
A brief procession flitting like a thought | Y |
Through a brain drowsing into slumber nought | Y |
But we awake in the solitude immense | A |
But hurting the vague dumbness of my sense | A |
Are fancies wandering the night there steals | A |
Into my heart like something that one feels | A |
In darkness the still presence of far homes | A |
Lost in deep country and in little rooms | A |
The vacant bed I touch the world of pain | R |
That is so silent Then I see again | R |
Only those infinitely patient faces | A |
In the lantern beam beneath the night's vast spaces | A |
Amid the shadows and the scented dew | Y |
And those illumined flowers springing anew | Y |
In freshness like a smile of secrecy | A |
From the gloom buried earth return to me | A |
The village sleeps blank walls and windows barred | Y |
But lights are moving in the hushed courtyard | Y |
As we glide up to the open door The Chief | Z |
Gives every man his order prompt and brief | Z |
We carry up our wounded one by one | R |
The first cock crows the morrow is begun | R |
Robert Laurence Binyon
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