Evolutions Of Soldiers

A poem by David Herbert Lawrence

The red range heaves and compulsory sways, ah see! in the flush of a march
Softly-impulsive advancing as water towards a weir from the arch
Of shadow emerging as blood emerges from inward shades of our night
Encroaching towards a crisis, a meeting, a spasm and throb of delight.

The wave of soldiers, the coming wave, the throbbing red breast of approach
Upon us; dark eyes as here beneath the busbies glittering, dark threats that broach
Our beached vessel; darkened rencontre inhuman, and closed warm lips, and dark
Mouth-hair of soldiers passing above us, over the wreck of our bark.

And so, it is ebb-time, they turn, the eyes beneath the busbies are gone.
But the blood has suspended its timbre, the heart from out of oblivion
Knows but the retreat of the burning shoulders, the red-swift waves of the sweet
Fire horizontal declining and ebbing, the twilit ebb of retreat.