''Have you forgotten yet?... <br /> For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days, <br /> Like traffic checked a while at the crossing of city ways: <br /> And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow <br /> Like clouds in the lit heavens of life; and you're a man reprieved to go, <br /> Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare. <br /> But the past is just the same—and War's a bloody game... <br /> Have you forgotten yet?... <br /> Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you'll never forget. <br /><br /> Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz— <br /> The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets? <br /> Do you remember the rats; and the stench <br /> Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench— <br /> And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain? <br /> Do you ever stop and ask, 'Is it all going to happen again?' <br /><br /> Do you remember that hour of din before the attack— <br /> And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then <br /> As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men? <br /> Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back <br /> With dying eyes and lolling heads—those ashen-gray <br /> Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay? <br /><br /> Have you forgotten yet?... <br /> Look up, and swear by the slain of the war that you'll never forget!'' <br /><br /> March 1919. <br /><br />Video from "Mad Jack" (1970), directed by Jack Gold
