“But I've grown thoughtful now. And you have lost Your early-morning freshness of surprise At being so utterly mine: you've learned to fear The gloomy, stricken places in my soul, And the occasional ghosts that haunt my gaze.”

“Have you forgotten yet?...For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days,Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city-ways:And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flowLike clouds in the lit heaven of life; and you're a man reprieved to go,Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare.But the past is just the same--and War's a bloody game...Have you forgotten yet?...Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you'll never forget.Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at MametzThe nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?Do you remember the rats; and the stenchOf corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench--And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?Do you ever stop and ask, 'Is it all going to happen again?'Do you remember that hour of din before the attack--And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you thenAs you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching backWith dying eyes and lolling heads--those ashen-greyMasks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?Have you forgotten yet?...Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you'll never forget.”

“December stillness, teach me through your treesThat loom along the west, one with the land,The veiled evangel of your mysteries.While nightfall, sad and spacious, on the downDeepens, and dusk embues me where I stand,With grave diminishings of green and brown,Speak, roofless Nature, your instinctive words;And let me learn your secret from the sky,Following a flock of steadfast-journeying birdsIn lone remote migration beating by.December stillness, crossed by twilight roads,Teach me to travel far and bear my loads.”

“Does it matter?--losing your legs?...For people will always be kind,And you need not show that you mindWhen the others come in after footballTo gobble their muffins and eggs.Does it matter?--losing your sight?...There's such splendid work for the blind;And people will always be kind,As you sit on the terrace rememberingAnd turning your face to the light.Do they matter?--those dreams from the pit?...You can drink and forget and be glad,And people won't say that you're mad;For they'll know that you've fought for your country,And no one will worry a bit.”

“Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled,And one arm bent across your sullen coldExhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you,Deep-shadow'd from the candle's guttering gold;And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder;Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head....You are too young to fall asleep for ever;And when you sleep you remind me of the dead.”

“I am banished from the patient men who fight.They smote my heart to pity, built my pride.Shoulder to aching shoulder, side by side,They trudged away from life's broad wealds of light.Their wrongs were mine; and ever in my sightThey went arrayed in honour. But they died,--Not one by one: and mutinous I criedTo those who sent them out into the night.The darkness tells how vainly I have strivenTo free them from the pit where they must dwellIn outcast gloom convulsed and jagged and rivenBy grappling guns. Love drove me to rebel.Love drives me back to grope with them through hell;And in their tortured eyes I stand forgiven.”

“Alone he staggered on until he foundDawn's ghost that filtered down a shafted stairTo the dazed, muttering creatures undergroundWho hear the boom of shells in muffled sound.”