Swear You'll Never Forget
By SIEGFRIED SASSOON
HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN YET?
For the world's events have rumbled on since those
gagged days,
Like traffic checked awhile at the crossing of the ways:
And the haunted gap in your minds has filled with
thoughts that flow
Like clouds in the lit heavens of life; and you are 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 parapet?
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 GOING TO
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