Leon Gellert - Poppies

Some scarlet poppies lay upon our right.
He watched them through his periscope all day.
He watched then all the day; but in the night
They seemed to pass away.

They came again much redder with the morn’
And still he gazed, and strangely longed to roam
Among their savage splendour in the corn,
And ponder on his home.

But when the charge was done, they found him
there
Deep in the redness, where he’d made his stand,
With withered poppies in his twisted hair,
And poppies in his hand.

Leon Gellert

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