Poems (Wilfred Owen)

<h2> The Send-off </h2> <p>Down the close, darkening lanes they sang their way<br/> To the siding-shed,<br/> And lined the train with faces grimly gay.<br/> <br/> Their breasts were stuck all white with wreath and spray<br/> As men's are, dead.<br/> <br/> Dull porters watched them, and a casual tramp<br/> Stood staring hard,<br/> Sorry to miss them from the upland camp.<br/> Then, unmoved, signals nodded, and a lamp<br/> Winked to the guard.<br/> <br/> So secretly, like wrongs hushed-up, they went.<br/> They were not ours:<br/> We never heard to which front these were sent.<br/> <br/> Nor there if they yet mock what women meant<br/> Who gave them flowers.<br/> <br/> Shall they return to beatings of great bells<br/> In wild trainloads?<br/> A few, a few, too few for drums and yells,<br/> May creep back, silent, to still village wells<br/> Up half-known roads.<br/></p> <p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"></SPAN></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />