AFTERMATH.

Digger (Invercargill RSA), Issue 9, 14 May 1920, Page 1

AFTERMATH.

Have you forgotten yet? For the world's events have runibled on, since those ragged days, Like traffic checked awhile at the crossing of city-ways ; And in the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow Like clouds in the heavens of life; and you're a man reprieved to go, Taking your peaceful sharo of Time, with joy to spare. But the past is just the same — and War's a bloody garne. 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 frontline trench — And dawn coming, dirty white, and chill with a hopeless rain? Do you ever stop and ask, "I3 it all going to happen again," Do you remember tliat 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 rolling heads — those ashen-grey Masks of the lads who once wero keen and kind and gay? Have you forgotten yet? Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you'll never forget. — Siegfried Sassoon, in "The Nation."