Siegfried Sassoon

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.

Craiglockart. October, 1917.