I SAW A MAN THIS MORNING (WHO DID NOT WISH TO DIE) - by Patrick Shaw-Stewart

- "Stand in the trench, Achilles, Flame-capped, and shout for me." -


I SAW A MAN THIS MORNING (WHO DID NOT WISH TO DIE)

- by Patrick Shaw-Stewart


I saw a man this morning
Who did not wish to die:
I ask and cannot answer,
If otherwise wish I.

Fair broke the day this morning
Against the Dardanelles;
The breeze blew soft, the morn's cheeks
Were cold as cold sea-shells.

But other shells are waiting
Across the Aegean Sea,
Shrapnel and high explosive,
Shells and hells for me.

O hell of ships and cities,
Hell of men like me,
Fatal second Helen,
Why must I follow thee?

Achilles came to Troyland
And I to Chersonese:
He turned from wrath to battle,
And I from three days' peace.

Was it so hard, Achilles,
So very hard to die?
Thou knewest, and I know not---
So much the happier I.

I will go back this morning
From Imbros over the sea;
Stand in the trench, Achilles,
Flame-capped, and shout for me.


-written at Gallipoli on 13 July 1915 by Patrick Shaw-Stewart, World War One Soldier, old Etonian,and a Classics scholar of legendary genius. He was later killed in France on 30 December 1917.

'Nauplion' write in 2010." I am 66 and a pacifist, and yet for many years, when facing something difficult, I have murmured those last lines."

Picture: Patrick Shaw-Stewart, World War One Soldier-Poet