Siegfried Sassoon, "The Road"

The Road

The road is thronged with women; soldiers pass

And halt, but never see them; yet they're here–

A patient crowd along the sodden grass,

Silent, worn out with waiting, sick with fear.

The road goes crawling up a long hillside,

All ruts and stones and sludge, and the emptied dregs

Of battle thrown in heaps. Here where they died

Are stretched big-bellied horses with stiff legs,

And dead men, bloody-fingered from the fight,

Stare up at caverned darkness winking white.

You in the...