Down the close, darkening lanes they sang their
To the siding-shed,
And lined the train with faces grimly gay.
Their breasts were stuck all white with wreath and
As men's are, dead.
Dull porters watched them, and a casual
Stood staring hard,
Sorry to miss them from the upland camp.
Then, unmoved, signals nodded, and a
Winked to the guard.
So secretly, like wrongs hushed-up, they went.
They were not ours:
We never heard to which front these were sent.
Nor there if they yet mock what women
Who gave them flowers.
Shall they return to beatings of great
In wild trainloads?
A few, a few, too few for drums and yells,
May creep back, silent, to still village
Up half-known roads.
This was written whilst Owen was at a holding camp at Ripon,
Yorkshire between being discharged from Craiglockhart Hospital and returning to the fighting in France.
