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Yup, right poet there (the Keith Douglas one) but no luck so far... maybe I'll ask the school librarian tomorrow or try and nick it off a friend. 
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Two perfectly good poems, both entitled "Words," help explain why one may not copyright a title.
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ooh, how frustrating, his manuscripts are in the imperial war museum document archive but as yet only a summary is accessible on line. he does show up on several war poet websites ( although the second world war seems to be overshadowed by WWO and the like) but it is not the right poem, in fact there is tons on another poem of his vers... something or other. just thought bonza, you are at school in London, why don't you go to the bbc schools page, it has loads of information on every bit of the syllabus and you can send questions like this in to the SOS online teacher who will be pleased to help.
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Phew! S'alright - managed to get it off a friend today. Thanks for the all help anyway everyone!  For anyone who's curious, here's the poem, online at last: Words
Words are my instruments but not my servants,
by the white pillars of a prince I lie in wait
for them. In what the hour or the minute invents,
in a web formally meshed or inchoate,
these fritillaries are come upon, trapped:
hot-coloured or the cold scarabs a thousand years
old, found in cerements and unwrapped.
The catch and the ways of catching are diverse.
For instance, this stooping man, the bones of whose face are
like the hollow birds' bones, is a trap for words.
And the pockmarked house bleached by the glare
whose insides war has dried out like gourds
attracts words. There are those who capture them
in hundreds, keep them prisoners in black
bottles, release them at exercise and clap them back.
But I keep words only a breath of a time
turning in the lightest of cages - uncover
and let them go! Sometimes they escape for ever.
Keith Douglas
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capture them
in hundreds, keep them prisoners in black
bottles
What an image! I'll bet WW will love this poem. I'm glad you found it, and thanks for posting it.
I had to look up fritillaries and cerements. What are "the white pillars of a prince"?
Is cerements a portmanteau word? (Ceremonial garments.)
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I really love the word fritillaries - not a patch on butterfly, huh! Yep, cerements - kinda like graveclothes or something similar, and I think the "white pillars..." are supposed to be just that - apparently he was sent to... someplace during the war (Africa or the East or something?) and, well, that was where he wrote it (perhaps it's describing some kind of temple?) - incidentally we were given very few pieces of advice for writing about this, and one of them was not to read anything into that line, just take it literally.
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Is cerements a portmanteau word? (Ceremonial garments.)
i think cerements comes from cerecloths, cered cloth meaning waxed cloth ( for wrapping the dead in), it's a pretty old word and not a portmanteau ( reckon, not sure and really should be proofreading not awadding so i'm not going to back this one up)
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