Aftermath. Have You Forgotten Yet . . ?

Illustration: HDWALLSOURCE.COM

Aftermath.

Siegfried Sassoon (1919)

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 flow

Like 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 Mametz –

The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets ?

Do you remember the rats; and the stench

Of 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 then

As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men ?

Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back

With dying eyes and lolling heads—those ashen-grey

Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay ?

Have you forgotten yet . . ?

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Illustration: SUN HATS & WELLIE BOOTS