/lit/ - Literature

>>13461604
It's a small recompense, you're welcome.

Smiles, Smiles, Smiles
BY WILFRED OWEN
>Head to limp head, the sunk-eyed wounded scanned
>Yesterday’s Mail; the casualties (typed small)
>And (large) Vast Booty from our Latest Haul.
>Also, they read of Cheap Homes, not yet planned;
>For, said the paper, “When this war is done
>The men’s first instinct will be making homes.
>Meanwhile their foremost need is aerodromes,
>It being certain war has just begun.
>Peace would do wrong to our undying dead,—
>The sons we offered might regret they died
>If we got nothing lasting in their stead.
>We must be solidly indemnified.
>Though all the worthy Victory which all bought,
>We rulers sitting in this ancient spot
>Would wrong our very selves if we forgot
>The greatest glory will be theirs who fought,
>Who kept this nation in integrity.
>Nation?—The half-limbed readers did not chafe
>But smiled at one another curiously
>Like secret men who know their secret safe.
>This is the thing they know and never speak,
>That England one by one had fled to France
>(Not many elsewhere not save under France).
>Pictures of these broad smiles appear each week,
>And people in whose voice real feeling rings
>Say: How they smile! They’re happy now, poor things.