“I believe that this war, upon which I entered as a war of defense and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest.”

“You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye Who cheer when soldier lads march by, Sneak home and pray you'll never know The hell where youth and laughter go." "The War Poems”

“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.”

“The fact is that five years ago I was, as near as possible, a different person to what I am tonight. I, as I am now, didn't exist at all. Will the same thing happen in the next five years? I hope so.”

“I died in hell. They called it Passchendaele.”

“I didn't want to die - not before I'd finished reading The Return of the Native anyhow.”

“Mute in that golden silence hung with green,Come down from heaven and bring me in your eyesRemembrance of all beauty that has been,And stillness from the pools of Paradise.”