Siegfried Sassoon, "Stretcher Case"

Stretcher Case

He woke; the clank and racket of the train

Kept time with angry throbbings in his brain.

Then for a while he lapsed and drowsed again.

At last he lifted his bewildered eyes

And blinked, and rolled them sidelong; hills and skies,

Heavily wooded, hot with August haze,

And, slipping backward, golden for his gaze,

Acres of harvest.

Feebly now he drags
Exhausted ego back from glooms and quags
And blasting tumult, terror, hurtling glare,
To calm and brightness...