Explore "Poems: The Dead-Beat" by Wilfred Owen on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
He dropped, -- more sullenly than wearily, / Lay stupid like a cod, heavy like meat, / And none of us could kick him to his feet; / Just blinked at my revolver, blearily; / -- Didn't appear to know a war was on, / Or see the blasted trench at which he stared. / "I'll do 'em in," he whined, "If this hand's spared, / I'll murder them, I will."
A low voice said, / "It's Blighty, p'raps, he sees; his pluck's all gone, / Dreaming of all the valiant, that AREN'T dead: / Bold uncles, smiling ministerially; / Maybe his brave young wife, getting her fun / In some new home, improved materially. / It's not these stiffs have crazed him; nor the Hun."
We sent him down at last, out of the way. / Unwounded; -- stout lad, too, before that strafe. / Malingering? Stretcher-bearers winked, "Not half!"
Next day I heard the Doc.'s well-whiskied laugh: / "That scum you sent last night soon died. Hooray!"