A Whispered Tale by Siegfried Sassoon

             S. Sassoon

I´d heard fool-heroes brag of where they´d been,

With stories of the glories that they’d seen. 

But you, good simple soldier, seasoned well 

In woods and posts and crater-lines of hell, 

Who dodge remembered ‘crumps’ with wry grimace,

Endured experience in your queer, kind face, 

Fatigues and vigils haunting nerve-strained eyes, 

And both your brothers killed to make you wise; 

You had no babbling phrases; what you said 

Was like a message from the maimed and dead.

But memory brought the voice I knew, whose note 

Was muted when they shot you in the throat; 

And still you whisper of the war, and find 

Sour jokes for all those horrors left behind.

(World War I began on this date 100 years ago. The poet Sassoon survived it.)