Down the close, darkening lanes they sang their way To the siding-shed, And lined the train with faces grimly gay. Their breasts were stuck all white with wreath and spray As men's are, dead. Dull porters watched them, and a casual tramp Stood staring hard, Sorry to miss them from the upland camp. Then, unmoved, signals nodded, and a lamp Winked to the guard. So secretly, like wrongs hushed-up, they went. They were not ours: We never heard to which front these were sent. Nor there if they yet mock what women meant Who gave them flowers. Shall they return to beatings of great bells In wild trainloads? A few, a few, too few for drums and yells, May creep back, silent, to still village wells Up half-known roads. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO MY CLASS: ON CERTAIN FRUITS AND FLOWERS SENT ... SICKNESS by SIDNEY LANIER EAST AND WEST by MATTHEW ARNOLD A FARM NEAR ZILLEBEKE by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN RESENTIENTS by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN THE WORM TURNS by BERTON BRALEY THE NEGLECTED HEART by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON OUR FIFTY-FIFTH; 1843-1897 by WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 4. IN THE STONE-FLOORED WORKSHOP by EDWARD CARPENTER |