AFTERMATH
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Have you forgotten yet?_ ...For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days,Like traffic checked awhile at the crossing of city-ways:And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flowLike clouds in the lit heavens of life; and you're a manreprieved 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 thatyou'll never forget._ Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz--The nights you watched and wired and dug and piledsandbags on parapets?Do you remember the rats; and the stenchOf 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 thenAs you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching backWith dying eyes and lolling heads--those ashen-greyMasks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay? _Have you forgotten yet? ...Look up, and swear by the green of the spring thatyou'll never forget._ _March, 1919_.
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