Page:Poems for Workers - ed. Manuel Gomez (1925).djvu/53

 Swear You'll Never Forget

By

HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN YET?

For the world's events have rumbled on since those

gagged days,

Like traffic checked awhile at the crossing of the ways:

And the haunted gap in your minds has filled with

thoughts that flow

Like clouds in the lit heavens of life; and you are a man

reprieved to go,

Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare.

BUT THE PAST IS JUST THE SAME—AND WAR'S A

BLOODY GAME

HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN YET?

LOOK DOWN, AND SWEAR BY THE SLAIN OF THE

WAR THAT YOU'LL NEVER FORGET.

Do you remember the dark months you held the

sector at Mametz—

The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled

sandbags on parapet?

Do you remember the rats, and the stench

Of corpses rotting in front of the front line trench,—

And dawn coming dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless

rain?

DO YOU EVER STOP AND ASK, "IS IT GOING TO

HAPPEN AGAIN?".

51