Yes, I still remember
The whole thing in a way;
Edge and exactitude
Depend on the day.
Of all that prodigious scene
There seems scanty loss,
Though mists mainly float and screen
Canal, spire and fosse;
Though commonly I fail to name
That once obvious Hill,
And where we went and whence we came
To be killed, or kill.
Those mists are spiritual
And luminous-obscure,
Evolved of countless circumstance
Of which I am sure;
Of which, at the instance
Of sound, smell, change and stir,
New-old shapes for ever
Intensely recur.
And some are sparkling, laughing, singing,
Young, heroic, mild;
And some incurable, twisted,
Shrieking, dumb, defiled.
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Can you remember?
From guest Andrew (contact)
I read this this morning on a new steel plaque on the old town ramparts at Ypres, next to the Menin gate. It has been translated into Flemish, and beneath it is a more recent Flemish poem, translated into English. Together they form an elegant couple and commentary on the dreadful battles in the Salient.
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