On Coastal Defence

No battle: only the reluctant sentry
And the unnatural mounds that threaten death
Betray the purpose of a nation.
No bugle blows to stir the sleeper.
But at dawn
A scattered group drags back to billet,
Heavy-eyed, and weary at the thought of day.
Yet, in the billet life springs back
Elastic from the torpor of the night,
And in the bantering talk, the rough and earth-rich wit,
There lives, born of a common wrong,
The pledge of a new day bursting out of wintry night.