You know the kind of thing, or used to know:
“Heroes who laugh while Fritz is strafing them”—
(I don’t remember that you found it fun,
The day they shelled us out of Blouwpoort Farm!)
“After the fight. Our cheery wounded. Note
The smile of victory: it won’t come off”—
(Of course they smile; so’d you, if you’d escaped,
And saw three months of hospital ahead....
They don’t smile, much, when they’re shipped back to France!)
“Out for the Great Adventure”—(twenty-five