World War II—1939–1945
Aristocrats: “I Think I Am Becoming a God”
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.
—Keith Douglas, Tunisia, 1943
Oxford-trained writer Keith C. Douglas served as a British soldier during World War II. He was a tank commander in North Africa fighting against German forces. He was later killed on 9 June 1944 during a reconnaissance mission in Caen, France, following the Normandy landings of 6 June.
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