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hint
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Answer
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Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us
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Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent
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Low, drooping flares confuse our memories of the salient
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Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous
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But nothing happens
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SPACE
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1
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aka '1'
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Watching, we hear the mad husts tugging on the wire
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Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles
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Northward, incessantly, the flickering gunnery rumbles
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Far off, like some dull rumour of some other war
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What are we doing here?
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SPACE
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1
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The poignant misery of dawn begins to grow
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We only know war lasts, rain soaks, and clouds sag stormy
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Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army
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Attacks once more in ranks on shivering ranks of grey,
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But nothing happens
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SPACE
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1
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Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence
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Less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow
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With sidelong flowing flakes that flock, pause and renew
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We watch them wandering up and down the winds nonchalance
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But nothing happens
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SPACE
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1
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Pale flakes with fingering stealth come feeling for our faces
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We cringe in holes, back on forgotten dreams, and stare snow-dazed
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Deep into grassier ditches. So we drowse, sun-dozed
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Littered with blossoms trickling where the blackbird fusses
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Is it that we are dying?
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SPACE
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1
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Slowly our ghosts drag home: glimpsing the sunk fires, glozed
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With crusted dark red jewels; crickets jingle there;
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For hours the innocent mice rejoice: the house is theirs;
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Shutters and doors all closed: on us the doors are closed
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We turn back to our dying
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SPACE
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1
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Since we believe not otherwise can kind fires burn
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Nor ever suns smile true on child, or field or fruit
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For God's invincible spring our love is made afraid
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Therefore. not loath, we lie out here: therefore were born
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For love of God seems dying
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SPACE
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1
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Tonight this frost will fasten on this mud and us
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Shrivelling many hands, puckering foreheads crisp
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The burying party, with picks and shovels in shaking grasp
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Pause over half known faces. All their eyes are ice
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But nothing happens
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