Aristocrats by Keith Douglas

From The Complete Poems of Keith Douglas, edited by Desmond Graham.  

Aristocrats

by Keith Douglas

The noble horse with courage in his eye, 

clean in the bone, looks up at a shellburst: 

away fly the images of the shires

but he puts the pipe back in his mouth.

Peter was unfortunately killed by an 88

it took his leg away, he died in the ambulance.

I saw him crawling on the sand, he said 

It’s most unfair, they’ve shot my foot off.

How can I live among this gentle

obsolescent breed of heroes, and not weep ?

Unicorns, almost,

for they are fading into two legends

in which their stupidity and chivalry

are celebrated. Each, fool and hero, will be an immortal.

These plains were their cricket pitch

and in the mountains the tremendous drop fences 

brought down some of the runners. Here then 

under the stones and earth they dispose themselves, 

I think with their famous unconcern.

It is not gunfire I hear, but a hunting horn.

Tunisia

1943

The poem from which this stanza is taken, originally entitled `Aristocrats', was written by Keith Douglas in Tunisia in 1943. It was occasioned by the death, on active service, of Lt. Col. J. D. Player, who left £3,000 to the Beaufort Hunt, and also directed that the incumbent of the living in his gift should be 'a man who approves of hunting, shooting, and all manly sports, which are the backbone of the nation.' (Desmond Graham (ed.), Keith Douglas: Complete Poems (1978), p. 139.)