Futility - 11 November 1918

Move him into the sun -
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.

Think how it wakes the seeds, -
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides,
Full-nerved, - still warm, - too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
- O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?

Dedicated to Augustin Trebuchon, the last French soldier to die in WWI. He was killed at 10.45 carrying a message ordering troops to muster for food at 1130.



Dedicated to George Lawrence Price of the Saskatchewan Regiment, shot by a German sniper at 10.59

Dedicated to Henry Gunther who died charging a German machine gun position in the last minute of the war.

Dedicated also to the German Leutnant Tomas killed by American soldiers after the Armistice. He is thought to be the last German to die that day

Dedicated to the men of the US 89th Division sent to their death on 11 November taking the town of Stenay for the want of a fucking bath.

Dedicated to the 11,000 Allied and German casualties on the last day of the "War To End All Wars"

In the hope that there is a special place in Hell for those who sent these men to their senseless deaths on that day