Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967). The Old Huntsman and Other Poems. 1918.

15. A Whispered Tale

I’D heard fool-heroes brag of where they’d been,

With stories of the glories that they’d seen.

But you, good simple soldier, seasoned well

In woods and posts and crater-lines of hell,

Who dodge remembered ‘crumps’ with wry grimace,

Endured experience in your queer, kind face,

Fatigues and vigils haunting nerve-strained eyes,

And both your brothers killed to make you wise;

You had no babbling phrases; what you said

Was like a message from the maimed and dead.

But memory brought the voice I knew, whose note

Was muted when they shot you in the throat;

And still you whisper of the war, and find

Sour jokes for all those horrors left behind.