Survivors

Portrait of Siegfried Sassoon
Siegfried Sassoon 1886–1967

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.

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