Travelling

A poem by John Frederick Freeman

They talked of old campaigns, nineteen-fourteen
And Mons and watery Yser, nineteen-fifteen
And Neuve Chapelle, 'sixteen, 'seventeen, 'eighteen
And after. And they grumbled, leaving home,
Then talked of nineteen-nineteen, nineteen-twenty
And after.

Their thoughts wandered, leaving home
Among familiar places and known years;
Anticipating in the river, of time
Rocks, rapids, shallows, idle glazing pools
Mirroring their dark dreams of heaven and earth.
--And then they parted, one to Chatham, one
To Africa, Constantinople one,
One to Cologne; and all to an unknown year,
Nineteen-nineteen perhaps, or another year.