The Luck of Edward Thomas
Thomas was twenty
when he wished
he’d never been born.
The old dread
can be read between
his last lines to Helen:
snow in April, the village
in ruins, larks
making love in the hedges.
Easter Monday
his heart’s stopped
not by a shell
that leaves no mark,
a myth cooked up
to spare Helen
the image of his body
broken, a bullet
ripping clean through
his chest.
In “An Old Song,”
he wrote:
I’ve thrown away
a chance to fight
a gamekeeper.
Thomas told Frost
he’d prove himself
by going into danger.
Enlisting
would test his courage.
Frost mourns him
like a brother,
remembers what he said
which did no good:
You don’t have to go to war.