Sunday, 12th May, 1946

This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.

'Release,' by James Walker, in today's Observer:

Now, prisoner in time's tower, the tower is taken;
The bridge is down; the moat is yours to cross.
Yonder the woven world, the motley hills.
The corn and cowlands, and the singing woods.
The taverns and the turmoils of the town
That distant, stung the appetites like wine,
Now, prisoner in time's tower, the bridge is down.

And yet you hesitate. The roads that beckoned
You reckoned hours and troubled you in dreams,
The freedom and the franchise now appal.
Was the moat tranquil? Safe the tower, and tall?
The battlements familiar to your touch
As are the rooms they live in to the blind?
Was this your world? - the other fantasy,
As childhood is to age, or home to mariners?
Now, prisoner in time's tower, the moat is yours.

Comments

[Erik Lund]

It's probably a reflection on my stunted tastes that I found that powerful and affecting.