The Send-off by Wilfred Owen
b"Owen read by Classic Poetry Aloud:\\nhttp://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/\\nGiving voice to the poetry of the past.\\n\\n---------------------------------------------\\n\\nThe Send-off \\nby Wilfred Owen (1893 \\u2013 1918)\\n\\nDown the close, darkening lanes they sang their way\\nTo the siding-shed,\\nAnd lined the train with faces grimly gay.\\nTheir breasts were stuck all white with wreath and spray\\nAs men's are, dead.\\n\\nDull porters watched them, and a casual tramp\\nStood staring hard,\\nSorry to miss them from the upland camp.\\nThen, unmoved, signals nodded, and a lamp\\nWinked to the guard.\\n\\nSo secretly, like wrongs hushed-up, they went.\\nThey were not ours:\\nWe never heard to which front these were sent.\\n\\nNor there if they yet mock what women meant\\nWho gave them flowers.\\n\\nShall they return to beatings of great bells\\nIn wild trainloads?\\nA few, a few, too few for drums and yells,\\nMay creep back, silent, to still village wells\\nUp half-known roads."