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“Out of the East” by James Fenton

Out of the South came Famine.
Out of the West came Strife.
Out of the North came a storm cone
And out of the East came a warrior wind
And it struck you like a knife.
Out of the East there shone a sun
As the blood rose on the day
And it shone on the work of the warrior wind
And it shone on the heart
And it shone on the soul
And they called the sun—Dismay.

And it’s a far cry from the jungle
To the city of Phnom Penh
And many try
And many die
Before they can see their homes again
And it’s a far cry from the paddy track
To the palace of the king
And many go
Before they know
It’s a far cry.
It’s a war cry.
Cry for the war that can do this thing.

A foreign soldier came to me
And he gave me a gun
And he predicted victory
Before the year was done.

He taught me how to kill a man.
He taught me how to try.
Be he forgot to say to me
How an honest man should die.

He taught me how to kill a man
Who was my enemy
But never how to kill a man
Who’d been a friend to me.

You fought the way a hero fight—
You had no need to fear
My friend, but you are wounded now
And I’m not allowed to leave you here

Alive.

Out of the East came Anger
And it walked a dusty road
And it stopped when it came to a river bank
And it pitched a camp
And it gazed across
To where the city stood
When
Out of the West came thunder
But it came without a sound
For it came at the speed of the warrior wind
And it fell on the heart
And it fell on the soul
And it shook the battleground

And it’s a far cry from the cockpit
To the foxhole in the clay
And we were a
Coordinate
In a foreign land
Far away
And it’s a far cry from the paddy track
To the palace of the king
And many try
And they ask why
It’s a far cry.
It’s a war cry.
Cry for the war that can do this thing.

Next year the army came for me
And I was sick and thin
And they put a weapon in our hands
And they told us we would win

And they feasted us for seven days
And they slaughtered a hundred cattle
And we sang our songs of victory
And the glory of the battle

And they sent us down the dusty roads
In the stillness of the night
And when the city heard from us
It burst in a flower of light.

The tracer bullets found us out.
The guns were never wrong
And the gunship said Regret Regret
The words of your victory song.

Out of the North came an army
And it was clad in black
And out of the South came a gun crew
With a hundred shells
And a howitzer
And we walked in black along the paddy track
When
Out of the West came napalm
And it tumbled from the blue
And it spread at the speed of the warrior wind
And it clung to the heart
And it clung to the soul
As napalm is designed to do

And it’s a far cry from the fireside
To the fire that finds you there
In the foxhole
By the temple gate
The fire that finds you everywhere
And it’s a far cry from the paddy track
To the palace of the king
And many try
And they ask why
It’s a far cry.
It’s a war cry.
Cry for the war that can do this thing.

My third year in the army
I was sixteen years old
And I had learnt enough, my friend,
To believe what I was told

And I was told that we would take
The city of Phnom Penh
And they slaughtered all the cows we had
And they feasted us again

And at last we were given river mines
And we blocked the great Mekong
And now we trained our rockets on
The landing-strip at Pochentong.

The city lay within our grasp.
We only had to wait.
We only had to hold the line
By the foxhole, by the temple gate

When
Out of the West came clusterbombs
And they burst in a hundred shards
And every shard was a new bomb
And it burst again
Upon our men
As they gasped for breath in the temple yard.
Out of the West came a new bomb
And it sucked away the air
And it sucked at the heart
And it sucked at the soul
And it found a lot of children there

And it’s a far cry from the temple yard
To the map of the general staff
From the grease pen to the gasping men
To the wind that blows the soul like chaff
And it’s a far cry from the paddy track
To the palace of the king
And many go
Before they know
It’s a far cry.
It’s a war cry.
Cry for the war that has done this thing.

A foreign soldier came to me
And he gave me a gun
And the liar spoke of victory
Before the year was done.

What would I want with victory
In the city of Phnom Penh?
Punish the city! Punish the people!
What would I want but punishment?

We have brought the king home to his palace.
We shall leave him there to weep
And we’ll go back along the paddy track
For we have promises to keep.

For the promise made in the foxhole,
For the oath in the temple yard,
For the friend I killed on the battlefield
I shall make that punishment hard.

Out of the South came Famine.
Out of the West came Strife.
Out of the North came a storm cone
And out of the East came a warrior wind
And it struck you like a knife.
Out of the East there shone a sun
As the blood rose on the day
And it shone on the work of the warrior wind
And it shone on the heart
And it shone on the soul
And they called the sun Dismay, my friend,
They called the sun—Dismay.