Today is Memorial Day in the U.S. So here's something written by Charles Hamilton Sorley, an English poet and officer in the first World War, who, knowing the odds, was contemplating commemoration. (You can hear it here, well-read by Walter Rufus Eagles.) This was found in Sorley's pack after he was shot dead by a sniper on October 13, 1915.
When you see millions of the mouthless deadAcross your dreams in pale battalions go,
Say not soft things as other men have said,
That you'll remember. For you need not so.
Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know
It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?
Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.
Say only this, "They are dead." Then add thereto,
"yet many a better one has died before."
Then, scanning all the overcrowded mass, should you
Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,
It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.
Great death has made all this for evermore.
