Unquiet lives at the base

These are the soldiers whom the Base restrains.
A starched life wakes among the melancholic walls,
The strangled voice of gutters where it rains.

The soldiers whose heroic vacancy appals:
The flaccid cigarette that crowns the face;
The moon-blank eyes in sicksweet urinals.

And in each moment rears the sad disgrace
Of useless work, of labour without hope;
Limbs unchained, but lost the sense of space.

While the mechanical, drab horosocope
Is daily re-affirmed.  In every place
They hug their deserts, and through deserts grope