When yesterday I went to see my friends,
With cigarettes and foolish odds and ends
(Knowing they understand how well I know
That nothing I may do can make amends,
But that I must not grieve or tell them so),
A pale-faced Inniskilling, tall and slim,
Who'd fought two years and now was just eighteen,
Smiled up and showed, with eyes a little dim,
How someone left him, where his leg had been,
On the humped bandage that replaced the limb,