Two Poems by Miles Tomlin
Two Poems by Miles Tomalin
The Volunteer for Liberty, V2, No. 35, November 7, 1938
Miles Tomlin playing the recorder, XV BDE Anti-Tank Battery
TO ENGLAND
From the English Dead
We, who were English once had eyes and saw
The savage greed of those who made this war
Tear up from earth, like a hog loose in flowers
So many lives as young and strong as ours,
You, England, stood apart from Spain’s affair,
You said you were secure in sea and cliff
While others sank in filthy war, as if
You kept some old virginity in there.
While the black armies marched and the dead fell,
You told your English people all was well,
And shutting eyes to war was finding peace.
You told them once, all slavery must cease.
Dishonourable England! We in Spain
Who died, died proudly, but not in your name;
Our friends will keep the love we felt for you
Among your maist* green landscapes and smooth hills,
Talk of it over honest window sills
And teach our children we were not untrue.
Not for those others, more like alien men
Who, quick to please our slayers, let them pass,
Not for them
We English lie beneath the Spanish grass.
*English variant of the word most –Merriam-Webster or a typo in which case it is likely “moist”.
THE GUNNER
The gunner on his crest
Watched the battalions waiting to assault
And saw his friend, relaxed there as if dead
Among the rest
He’ll go at the first shout, the gunner said.
Meantime the waiting makes his mind still
As a watch when it’s wound up’ sometimes will
Until you shake it.
He’ll go – I know that fellow well enough,
I shouldn’t wonder if the going’s tough.
Oh God, the gunner said, I hope he’ll make it!
There’s that damned fascist rather going again.
Give me another five, Chief, or they’ll start
Before we’ve got it. Give me another five –
I want to see that man come out alive.
