Siegfried Sassoon, 'Survivors'
Survivors
No doubt they'll soon get well; the shock and strain
Have caused their stammering, disconnected talk.
Of course they're "longing to go out again,"--
These boys with old, scared faces, learning to walk,
They'll soon forget their haunted nights; their cowed
Subjection to the ghosts of friends who died,--
Their dreams that drip with murder; and they'll be proud
Of glorious war that shatter'd all their pride....
Men who went out to battle, grim and glad;
Children, with eyes that hate you, broken and mad.
By Siegfried Sassoon
At Craiglockhart Hospital, Oct. 1917
No doubt they'll soon get well; the shock and strain
Have caused their stammering, disconnected talk.
Of course they're "longing to go out again,"--
These boys with old, scared faces, learning to walk,
They'll soon forget their haunted nights; their cowed
Subjection to the ghosts of friends who died,--
Their dreams that drip with murder; and they'll be proud
Of glorious war that shatter'd all their pride....
Men who went out to battle, grim and glad;
Children, with eyes that hate you, broken and mad.
By Siegfried Sassoon
At Craiglockhart Hospital, Oct. 1917