Conqerors

"By sundown we came to a hidden village

Where all the air was still

And no sound met our tired ears, save

For the sorry drip of leaves from blackened trees

And the melancholy song of swinging gates. 

Then through a broken window pane some of us saw

A dead bird in a rusting cage, still

Pressing his thin tattered breast against the bars,

His beak wide open. And

As we hurried through the weed-grown street,

A gaunt dog started up from some dark place

And shambled off on legs as thin as sticks

Into the wood, to die at last in peace.

No-one had told us victory was like this;

Not one amongst us would have eaten bread

Before he'd filled the mouth of the grey child

That sprawled, stiff as atone, before the shattered door.

There was not one of us who did not think of home."

- Henry Treece

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My literature exam unseen poem.

And all shall despair and die.