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 /><br />Wilfred Owen<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-send-off/
