Keith Douglas "Russians" WW2 Poem

Heres another beautiful and tragic poem by Keith Douglas (1920 - 1944) the young soldier poet who was to die himself in ww2 . This poem describes a ghostly Russian battalion frozen solid where they stood in the perma frost of the Siberian winter.Douglas had read of such an event. The bitter cold Russian winter that had defeated Napolean's army and was to once again be the undoing of the diabolical Nazi war machine on the Eastern Front.

Regards...

Jim Clark..

Russians

How silly that soldier is pointing his gun at the wood he doesnt know it isnt any good You see the cold and cruel northern wind has frozen the whole battalion where they stand

Thats never a corporal; even now he's frozen you could see he's only a commercial artist whom they took and put those clothes on and told him he was one of the smartest

Even now they're in ice its easy to know what a shock it was,a long shock thats been coming home to them wherever they go, with their mazy minds taking stock

Walk among the innocuous parade and touch them if you like,they're properly stayed; keep out of their line of sight and they wont look Think of them as waxworks,or tghink them struck

With a dumb immobile spell to wake in a thousand years with the sweet force of spring upon them in the merry world,well at least forget what happens when it thaws....