Soldiers Asleep

From Rafael Alberti

Consider:

For they sleep with a countryman's air,

With the vulnerable look of the animal-these stark ones, inured

To whatever the dream may appoint them, or cozen them toward,

Tirelessly, sooner or later, like shepherd dogs there.

Over their sufferance, as over a land's depredation

Stricken with hoofprints, a country of withering bone,

The bite of a wheel and the slackening sound of rotation

Spins from their pupils asleep, estranged and alone.

They sleep; and their hands that are fist-blows, unhuddle,

An instant unlearning their calling, the marches and numbers,

While their counter-existences stand in the void of the puddle-

And even the rifle gives over its office, and slumbers.