Robert Nichols
1. Noon
It is midday; the deep trench glares….
A buzz and blaze of flies….
The hot wind puffs the giddy airs….
The great sun rakes the skies.
No sound in all the stagnant trench
Where forty standing men
Endure the sweat and grit and stench,
Like cattle in a pen.
Sometimes a sniper’s bullet whirs
Or twangs the whining wire,
Sometimes a soldier sighs and stirs
As in hell’s frying fire.
From out a high, cool cloud descends
An aeroplane’s far moan,
The sun strikes down, the thin cloud rends….
The black speck travels on.
And sweating, dazed, isolate
In the hot trench beneath,
We bide the next shrewd move of fate
Be it of life or death.
2. Night Bombardment
Softly in the silence the evening rain descends….
The soft wind lifts the rain-mist, flurries it, and spends
Itself in mournful sighs, drifting from field to field,
Soaking the draggled sprays which the low hedges wield
As they labour in the wet and the load of the wind.
The last light is dimming. Night comes on behind.
I hear no sound but the wind and the rain,
And trample of horses, loud and lost again
Where the wagons in the mist rumble dimly on
Bringing more shell.
The last gleam is gone.
It is not day or night; only the mists unroll
And blind with their sorrow the sight of my soul.
I hear the wind weeping in the hollow overhead:
She goes searching for the forgotten dead
Hidden in the hedges or trodden into muck
Under the trenches or maybe limply stuck
Somewhere in the branches of a high, lonely tree –
He was a sniper once. They never found his body.
I see the mist drifting. I hear the wind, the rain,
And on my clammy face the oozed breath of the slain
Seems to be blowing. Almost I have heard
In the shuddering drift the lost dead’s last word:
Go home, go home, go to my house,
Knock at the door, knock hard, arouse
My wife and the children – that you must do –
What d’ you say? – Tell the children too –
Knock at the door, knock hard, and arouse
The living. Say: the dead won’t come back to this house.
Oh… but it’s cold – I soak in the rain –
Shrapnel found me – I shan’t go home again.
No, not home again – The mourning voices trail
Away into rain, into darkness… the pale
Soughing of the night drifts on in between.
The Voices were as if the dead had never been.
O melancholy heavens, O melancholy fields!
The glad, full darkness grows complete and shields
Me from your appeal.
With a terrible delight
I hear far guns low like oxen, at the night.
Flames disrupt the sky. The work is begun.
“Action!” My guns crash, flame, rock, and stun
Again and again. Soon the soughing night
Is loud with their clamour and leaps with their light.
The imperative chorus rises sonorous and fell:
My heart glows lighted as by fires of hell,
Sharply I pass the terse orders down.
The guns stun and rock. The hissing rain is blown
Athwart the hurtling shell that shrilling, shrilling goes
Away into the dark to burst a cloud of rose
Over their trenches.
A pause: I stand and see
Lifting into the night like founts incessantly,
The pistol-lights’ pale spores upon the glimmering air…
Under them furrowed trenches empty, pallid, bare….
And rain snowing trenchward ghostly and white,
O dead in the hedges, sleep ye well to-night!
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Analysis (AI Assisted)
This poem dives into the daily realities of war, split into two contrasting yet equally haunting sections: the oppressive stagnation of midday and the chaotic violence of a night bombardment. Both parts work together to present a world caught between numb monotony and explosive horror, a cycle that defines the life of soldiers on the front.
The first section, *Noon,* focuses on the unbearable stillness of the trench under the blazing sun. The imagery here is all about discomfort and decay. The “buzz and blaze of flies” and the “sweat and grit and stench” create a sensory overload that feels as suffocating to the reader as it must have been for the soldiers. The comparison to “cattle in a pen” strips the men of their individuality, reducing them to helpless beings trapped in their environment. Even the rare sounds—like a sniper’s bullet or the distant drone of an airplane—don’t bring action or relief, only more tension. This section captures a different kind of suffering: not the chaos of battle, but the oppressive weight of waiting, not knowing whether the next move will bring life or death. It’s like time has stopped, yet the men are slowly being worn down by their surroundings.
The second section, *Night Bombardment,* shifts into motion, but it’s not a relief. The rain and mist set a mournful tone, blurring the line between the living and the dead. The descriptions of the rain soaking into the fields, the hedges, and even the soldiers’ faces make the battlefield feel alive, as if it’s absorbing the grief and despair of the men. This part is especially eerie because it brings in the voices of the dead. The dead speak directly, pleading for the living to go home and tell their families what has happened. These imagined voices are haunting not only because of their content but because they highlight the survivor’s guilt and the lingering presence of death in the soldier’s mind.
But the poem doesn’t end there. It moves from the quiet sorrow of rain and ghosts to the terrifying roar of artillery fire. The moment when the speaker gives the order to fire is chilling. There’s a strange energy in it—a mix of duty, power, and a kind of numbed excitement. The shells turn the night sky into bursts of light and color, described as “a cloud of rose” over the enemy trenches. This beauty contrasts sharply with the destruction it represents, a reminder of how war warps everything, even aesthetics.
What stands out is how the poem cycles back to stillness after the bombardment. The pistol-lights float pale in the air, revealing trenches that are “empty, pallid, bare.” The rain falls again, ghostly and white, as if to cover everything in silence. Even the dead in the hedges are acknowledged with a kind of peace: “Sleep ye well to-night.” The war continues, but there’s a recognition of the human cost beneath the surface.
This poem doesn’t glorify war; it examines it with unflinching honesty. It captures the extremes of waiting and action, the ways soldiers are worn down physically and mentally, and how even beauty and stillness in war are stained by violence and loss. The vivid descriptions and emotional depth draw the reader into the soldiers’ experience, making it impossible to look away. The poem leaves you with the sense that war doesn’t just kill—it lingers, in the land, in the air, and in the minds of those who survive.