Bombardment

Four days the earth was rent and torn

By bursting steel.

The houses fell about us;

Three nights we dared not sleep,

Sweating, and listening for the imminent crash

Which meant our death.

The fourth night every man,

Nerve-tortured, racked to exhaustion,

Slept, muttering and twitching, while the shells crashed overhead.

The fifth day there came a hush;

We left our holes

And looked above the wreckage of the earth

To where the white clouds moved in silent lines
Across the untroubled blue.