“Phantoms of thought and memory thinned and fled.”

“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.”

“Dim, gradual thinning of the shapeless gloomShudders to drizzling daybreak that revealsDisconsolate men who stamp their sodden bootsAnd turn dulled, sunken faces to the skyHaggard and hopeless. They, who have beaten downThe stale despair of night, must now renewTheir desolation in the truce of dawn,Murdering the livid hours that grope for peace.Yet these, who cling to life with stubborn hands,Can grin through storms of death and find a gapIn the clawed, cruel tangles of his defence.They march from safety, and the bird-sung joyOf grass-green thickets, to the land where allIs ruin, and nothing blossoms but the skyThat hastens over them where they endureSad, smoking, flat horizons, reeking woods,And foundered trench-lines volleying doom for doom.O my brave brown companions, when your soulsFlock silently away, and the eyeless dead,Shame the wild beast of battle on the ridge,Death will stand grieving in that field of warSince your unvanquished hardihood is spent.And through some mooned Valhalla there will passBattalions and battalions, scarred from hell;The unreturning army that was youth;The legions who have suffered and are dust.”

“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.”

“EVERYONE suddenly burst out singing; And I was filled with such delightAs prisoned birds must find in freedom,Winging wildly across the white Orchards and dark-green fields; on—on—and out of sight. Everyone’s voice was suddenly lifted; And beauty came like the setting sun: My heart was shaken with tears; and horror Drifted away ... O, but EveryoneWas a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.”

“Who's this—alone with stone and sky?It's only my old dog and I—It's only him; it's only me;Alone with stone and grass and tree. What share we most—we two together?Smells, and awareness of the weather.What is it makes us more than dust?My trust in him; in me his trust.”

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