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German Prisoners

Joseph Lee

When first I saw you in the curious street,
Like some platoon of soldier ghosts in grey,
My mad impulse was all to smite and slay,
To spit upon you – tread you ‘neath my feet.
But when I saw how each sad soul did greet
My gaze with no sign of defiant frown,
How from tired eyes looked spirits broken down,
How each face showed the pale flag of defeat,
And doubt, despair, and disillusionment,
And how were grievous wounds on many a head,
And on your garb red-faced was other red;
And how you stooped as men whose strength was spent,
I knew that we had suffered each as other,
And could have grasped your hand and cried, ‘My brother!’


Joseph Lee

from Work-a-Day Warriors (London: John Murray, 1917)

Reproduced by permission of the University of Dundee Archives

Tags:

brotherhood connection despair loss prisoners sonnets tiredness World War I
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Joseph Lee1876 - 1949

Dundee-born Joseph Lee was a poet, journalist, artist and traveller, whose poems and sketches gave the world a glimpse of life in the trenches and prison camps of the First World War.
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