Remembrance

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The Messages (~1918)

"I cannot quite remember.... There were five

Dropt dead beside me in the trench – and three

Whispered their dying messages to me...."

Back from the trenches, more dead than alive,

Stone-deaf and dazed, and with a broken knee,

He hobbled slowly, muttering vacantly:

"I cannot quite remember.... There were five

Dropt dead beside me in the trench – and three

Whispered their dying messages to me....

"Their friends are waiting, wondering how they thrive....

Waiting a word in silence patiently....

But what they said, or who their friends may be,

"I cannot quite remember.... There were five

Dropt dead beside me in the trench – and three

Whispered their dying messages to me...."

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

1878-1962

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